The Bridal Discussion
by RiikiTikiTavi
Summary: Why is Kaoru more nervous than the average bride?
1. Chapter 1

Author: RiikiTikiTavi  
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin  
Rating: Pretty darned hard "R"  
Pairing: Kenshin + Kaoru  
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the Kyoto arc and the end of the manga. Sex. Decidedly weird humor. And, well, anatomy. ;;^^  
Archive: Um, I kinda like to keep track of where these hentai things are when I write 'em. So, no archives, no MSTings.

* * *

 **The Bridal Discussion, Part One**

* * *

It had been an elaborate, formal affair, very different from the hurried wartime ceremony that he rushed through with Tomoe. Perhaps that explained the sense of unreality that had plagued Kenshin for most of the day. Every time he looked at his bride, however, the question ran through his mind: Was this really his Kaoru?

She was as a stranger to him, her face painted stark white, artificial color touched to her lips and eyelids. The wedding kimono was tighter than any of her training outfits, even tighter than her other kimonos. It constricted her movements forcing her into very tiny steps that bore no resemblance to her usual swinging stride. Between the painted face and the rich kimono she appeared as a very beautiful courtesan, one that a lucky man might catch a glimpse of from a great distance away. She looked like a dream and he had felt all day as if he were in one, unable to do more than woodenly go through the motions of the ceremony while his huge wondering eyes remained on her with painful courtesy.

It was not just the way she looked, although that certainly played its part in his general unease. For the last few days she had been nervous and jumpy. Yahiko had teased her about bridal jitters, earning numerous clouts on the head and extra katas for his rudeness. Kenshin, however, had been unable to pry two words out of her. She barely looked at him as they passed at the dojo, barely spoke to him except for the most stark necessities of communication. They had walked together to the market the other day, and he had started to put his arm around her shoulders as he had done often since their official engagement. She shied away so violently that he threw up his hands to shield himself, fully expecting a rain of blows as punishment for some unknown infraction. But she had not threatened him with any physical brutality, merely continued toward the market while keeping the width of the entire path between them. After a pause he had followed at respectful distance, his puzzlement increasing but not at all sure what to do in order to close the more-than-physical gap between them.

After the ceremony there was a small reception at the dojo that was both a celebration for the marriage and a going-away party for Megumi, who was once more returning to her home city of Aizu. She came periodically to help out at the clinic when Doctor Gensai was feeling his age or when there was a troublesome illness making the rounds in Tokyo. Usually her visits put Kaoru on edge as the older woman flirted shamelessly with Kenshin. Even Megumi was not so bold, however, as to try to seduce a man on his wedding night. She made sly eyes at Kenshin whenever Kaoru looked her way, but she remained on remarkably good behavior; at least by her standards. She was the first of the guests to leave, dragging Yahiko off by his ear when he complained that the night was still young. "Precisely!" Megumi said lightly. "And it's not for the rest of us to share, either." She lowered her lashes and gave the puzzled boy her most melting glance. "Unless you have some plans for us together that you haven't told me about yet, Yahiko-kun?"

Yahiko stared at her blankly before catching her meaning. Screeching in revulsion, he didn't stop running until he reached the longhouse where he lived, bolting the doors after himself for good measure. The other guests left more sedately, but all too soon Kenshin found himself moving alone around the grounds as he performed his usual nightly chores, making sure the gates to the dojo were barred and putting out the fires in the bathhouse and the kitchen. He hesitated when he came back in, not sure exactly where to find Kaoru but deciding to check her room first in the theory that familiarity would make that the most comfortable place for her in the dojo.

Although he was relieved to see that his intuition had not played him false he paused before crossing the threshold, uncertain how to interpret the scene in front of him. Kaoru knelt at a small table which held tea cups and a brewing pot. He spoke her name as a question meaning to withdraw if she needed time to herself, but she ducked her head demurely and he cautiously entered.

At her gesture he knelt across from her, accepting the tea cup that was passed to him. There was a fine tremor to her fingers that he could not feel, but the slight ripples in the fluid betrayed her. He cupped his hands clumsily around the tiny cup, staring into it while his mind raced. Usually when she was nervous or frightened she would start screaming to cover it. He studied her carefully through his lashes, wondering if she had her bokken stashed in the kimono ready to bash him over the head. "Kaoru," he said, caution still foremost in his mind, "do you need to be alone for a while?" He looked at the wedding outfit that she still wore, thinking it must be confining for her. "I can come back when you're ready for bed. Where's your sleeping yukata? I can lay that out for you-"

"There's no need to go," she interrupted him, the words formal. "I know what is expected."

He quirked a brow slightly, not sure if he should believe her but definitely unwilling to approach her in this mood. It was all too — cold, somehow. "Perhaps you should tell **me** what to expect, then?" he prodded carefully. She glanced down at her knees before looking away and he cursed the all-concealing white paste on her face; he couldn't read her at all. He tried for a light tone. "It would be a great help to go over the details. I may have forgotten a few things, that I may have. It's been a very long time since I've been near a woman. Not since — "

 _Since Tomoe._

"Is that it?" he asked sharply. "Is it Tomoe?"

She shook her head with vigor, the first hint of any emotion other than nerves. "No, no! Tomoe gave you to me, she protected me when I was with Einshi! You wouldn't be **you** without her." Then she did something that she never did; she bowed formally, putting her forehead against the floor as she did so. "I'm very grateful to her."

He blinked at her. _Who are you and what have you done with Kaoru?_ he almost said out loud. Feeling thoroughly rattled, he sipped at his tea to cover his confusion and nearly choked on it; it had over-steeped and was very bitter. He felt a quick flood of relief. _It must be Kaoru; no one else could mess up brewing a pot of tea!_ He hastily put the cup down, his amethyst eyes filled with compassion as he studied her. "Kaoru, what do you want of this unworthy one tonight?" he asked gently.

She placed her hands primly against her knees, palms down, every inch the dutiful wife. Her passivity was beginning to make Kenshin very worried. He wondered if she could possibly be running a fever. "Don't be shy, Kenshin. I'm ready for you to take your humongeous ... **thing** out and pierce me with it."

 _"ORO?!"_ Kenshin's eyes became little swirls of confusion. He fell over with a loud 'thump'.

A gnawed lower lip was the only concession Kaoru allowed her anxiety. With a patience born of long practice she waited for Kenshin to pull himself together, which he quickly did although his composure was less than perfect. "Ah ... Kaoru ... **humongeous** ... ?" His eyes pressed into embarrassed crescents as one hand rubbed the back of his head nervously. "As much as I hate to disappoint you on our wedding night, I'm afraid you're going to have to settle for 'average'..."

She dropped her gaze to her hands. "Kenshin, I've seen the woodcuts," she said with some difficulty. "Megumi showed them to me."

" _ **ORO**_?!"

"I know what happens between men and women now. So could we just, please ... get it over with?"

Kenshin's eyes reverted to swirls as he pitched over again. Sighing, Kaoru picked up a tea cup, brought it to her lips and then tossed the bitter liquid down her throat as if it were sake and she was in a drinking contest with Sano. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

 _One week earlier..._

Kaoru had never thought of herself as particularly sheltered. She was, after all, the owner of a dojo and the assistant master of the Kamiya Kasshin style. She fought with, and usually bested, men on a daily basis. Although not on Kenshin's level by any stretch of the imagination she had more skill than most. She knew all about pressure points and weak spots on both sexes, and even that there were special ones for men. When Megumi suggested to her behind the cover of one elegantly-lifted hand that Kaoru might want to come by the clinic for _"the bridal discussion"_ Kaoru had not seriously considered that there was a gap in her education that needed to be filled.

But when Megumi brought out the woodcuts to demonstrate some of the more ... _practical_ aspects of married life, Kaoru suddenly realized that she didn't have a clue about anything important at all.

Megumi had been very professional, which had just made it all that much worse. If she had been her usual sly, foxy self then Kaoru could have immediately found an outlet for her astonished embarrassment in a good old fashioned cat fight. But Megumi had been counseling nervous young Tokyo brides for some time now — Dr. Gensai was more than happy to hand that part of the practice over to her when she was in town — and her manner was completely clinical as she laid the half-dozen or so wood prints across the desk. "These top few are older ones from the Edo period," she told Kaoru as the younger woman stared in horrified fascination. "I like these last two better. I got them myself from Katsu. Isn't the kimono work much more realistic? Look at how the material folds!"

Kaoru found she wasn't much interested in the various elegant ways in which kimonos could be bunched around waists. "I thought Tsukioka-san retired from drawing?" she mumbled in a very tiny voice as she wondered if she were going to pass out.

"Oh, he had a few of these laying about," said Megumi cheerfully. Kaoru boggled at the idea of such things just casually scattered around Katsu's living quarters, and then again at how Megumi could possibly **know** he had such things casually scattered about his living quarters. "Obviously not anything his newspaper business needs, but excellent reference material for a doctor's office! Now. What questions can I answer for you?"

Speechless, Kaoru pointed.

"Male genitalia," nodded Megumi. "Anything in particular?"

"I've seen ..." Kaoru thought back to the moment when Kamatari flashed her and Misao. "It doesn't look like **that**. Does it?"

"During sexual excitement the organ fills with blood, which gives it greater size and," here she did give into her foxy nature and winked, "durability."

And, apparently, the size increase also made 'it' thicker than her thigh and nearly as long as her leg. Kaoru looked nervously at the women in the woodcuts. None of them seemed to be in active agony. But then, none of them seemed to be enjoying themselves, either. They all had blank expressions on their formally painted faces. And little wonder; they were scrunched up in positions that even with all of her martial arts training Kaoru doubted she would be able to contort into, their tiny white hands and feet waving about uselessly. Kaoru imagined that the concentration it took to weave arms and legs into some of those arrangements would preclude a woman from thinking or feeling much of anything. "How often do I have to ...?"

There was just a hint of fox ears popping out from Megumi's head at that question. "With Ken-san, I would hope as often as possible," she murmured, but she quickly reverted to a more professional tone. "That varies between couples, of course, but twice a week is considered reasonable. If you two are planning on having children right away, then obviously more often at first. Oh, and **this** is one of the better positions for getting pregnant."

Kaoru looked at 'this' and thought, _Not for all the tofu in Tokyo._ "I'll, ah, keep that in mind," she said faintly. "Megumi, thank you but I've got to go, um, shopping. For tofu. That's it, we're out of tofu."

Megumi appeared surprised but, thankfully, offered no protests as she gathered up the woodcuts to be put away. "Now there's a whole week before the wedding," she reminded Kaoru. "If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to come by and ask. And if **Ken-san** has any questions," she added, the fox ears popping out again with her sly smile, "you just direct him here and I'll be **more** than happy to answer those, too."

Kaoru gave a non-committal squeak and fled.

She did not go to the market. Instead she wandered aimlessly for a while until she found herself on the path leading to the river. Following it, she stood quietly on the bank and looked out at the fast moving water, trying to come to terms with the new role she would be expected to take up when she became Kenshin's wife. She would have to waste an hour every night painting her face and wear constricting, tight-fitting kimonos for Kenshin to scrunch into thick pads at her waist. Could she change into something more comfortable afterwards? She hoped so. Kenshin had a kind nature. Surely he wouldn't mind if she did.

Contemplating her new understanding of the more physical aspects of marriage made Kaoru feel just a touch queasy. No, no, she had to be honest with herself; she was completely appalled, so much so that she was not even sure she could go through with the ceremony. Wrapping her arms around herself for comfort, she paused, considering the feeling of her own hands on her arms. It wasn't ... unpleasant. She squeezed the flesh of her upper arms carefully. It didn't hurt, it wasn't uncomfortable.

It wasn't unpleasant when Kenshin touched her, either. She ... **liked** it when he touched her. When he put one arm around her as they walked together, she felt protected. When he put both arms around her for a gentle embrace, she felt cherished. And there was something else, usually during those accidental brushes of fingers doing laundry or dishes; a startling mutual spark of warmth that would make him jump away muttering _"Oro?"_ as she stood still and blushed for no good reason.

But it seemed that there was touching and there was **touching**. Apparently marriage involved a lot of intense concentration for those strange interlocking of limbs that left little room for warmth or pleasure. And, oh, did it look uncomfortable! She thought it little wonder that Kenshin had not remarried in the nearly fifteen years since his first wife's death. It must have taken that long to straighten the kinks out of his muscles.

 _Can I do this?_ Kaoru wondered. _Can I_ _ **really**_ _go through with this?_

She remembered how it had been when he left for Kyoto, how life had drained of all meaning for her to the point where she couldn't function. And it had been the same for him; when Einshi took her Kenshin had completely shut down. Without marriage, would he have any reason to remain? And if he left again, how would they both survive?

Resolved hardened in her. If it meant he would stay with her and not resume his wandering ways; well then, Kaoru decided, she **would** go through with the marriage. She was a strong woman. Surely she could put up with 'that' twice a week or so. Those contorted figures with their frozen faces flashed through her mind and she briefly faltered. At least, she hoped she could.

* * *

Quick note: Normally I'm not a fan of Japanese expressions in English language fanfics but in this case I've kept Kenshin's "oro" because ... well, it's quite untranslatable, really; it's sort of an expression of surprise like "huh" or "wha-?" but there's no one-to-one English word or phrase that works for me. However, I'm using "this unworthy one" for "sessha" where I think it appropriate.

Other quick note: If you've never seen erotic Japanese woodcuts from the Meiji or Edo periods, you've missed out on the educational experience of your life! They're nifty. They are also exaggerated to the point of caricature, but how is poor Kaoru supposed to know that? ~_^


	2. Chapter 2

Author: RiikiTikiTavi  
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin  
Rating: Pretty darned hard "R"  
Pairing: Kenshin + Kaoru  
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the manga series. More references to exaggerated anatomy. Downright _twisted_ humor. ^^  
Archive: Um, I kinda like to keep track of where these hentai things are when I write 'em. So, no archives unless I put it there myself, no MSTings.

* * *

 **The Bridal Discussion, Part 2**

* * *

She was terrified.

His strong, capable, feisty Kaoru was terrified. So terrified that, despite her determined attempt at concealment, he had been able to discern it through the cover of the cosmetic paints and the guise of conventional behavior.

Kenshin had been prepared to deal with bridal nerves (including his own; after all, what little experience he could lay claim to had been over a decade earlier), but sheer terror was another matter. He had no idea what had been in the images that she had seen, but he knew he had to do something to calm her down before making any attempt to physically show her how much he loved her. The fact she hadn't run away screaming in spite of her stark fear of her marital duties, he thought wryly, went a long way toward demonstrating how much **she** loved **him**. The realization that her fear wasn't rooted in any basic mistrust of him personally was surprisingly reassuring. What he was going to have to do was, somehow, get her used to what his male body was capable (and not capable) of doing.

Before the night got a moment older, however, he wanted his Kaoru back.

He inched closer to her, gently touching his fingers to the back of hers where they lay pressed into her lap. She didn't flinch, but impossibly she became even more motionless as she sucked in her breath and held it. "You look beautiful," he said softly, "like one of those porcelain china dolls in the import shop. It's just us now, though." Carefully he raised a hand to cup her cheek. "Can you take this off?"

Her eyes rounded in fright, the effect exaggerated by the dark paint outlining her lids. She half-heartedly placed her hands on the obi about her middle, but Kenshin shook his head. "No, no; not the kimono. **This**." He tapped her cheek lightly. "This — **stuff**. I can't see your face when you're wearing it."

She regarded him uncertainly. "I'm supposed to be wearing it. Those women—"

"In the woodcuts?" he asked, and she nodded. "I'm not married to any of them, that I am not," he pointed out with a small smile. "While you are at it — " his swordsman's hand moved quickly, and the stick-like kanzashi that had been wound into her elaborate wedding coiffure were carefully placed in her lap, "put these away, and brush out your hair. I'll heat the water for your bath."

"My bath?" Kaoru repeated blankly. "Kenshin—"

"It is a little late, but after such a tiring day a nice hot soak is just the thing," he coaxed. Dumbfounded, she found herself nodding agreement. "Maybe I'll fix some dinner as well. You didn't eat a thing."

"I was too nervous," she confessed.

"Nervous?" he said, opening his eyes as wide as they could go. "Whatever for? It's just you and me here, Kaoru, same as it's been every night since Yahiko moved into the longhouse."

Her wary gaze turned sardonic, much to Kenshin's relief. "There's my Kaoru," he whispered, and leaned forward. Kaoru jerked away before forcing herself into a painful stillness, but all he did was briefly brush his nose against hers before getting to his feet. "Come out to the bath house when you're ready," he said cheerfully. "I'll make sure everything is prepared, that I will."

* * *

After Kenshin departed Kaoru spent several minutes kneeling just as he left her, her mind a jumble of confusion. How was she supposed to maintain that look of elegant disinterest without paint on her face? And what was Kenshin **doing?** She had been sure when he leaned into her that the **thing** was about to make its appearance but all he had done was lightly touch her face. She didn't know if she should be relieved or insulted. Didn't he **want** to bunch up her kimono? Admittedly the formal obi made it very constricting; she had been worried that the material would get stuck at her hips and not scrunch around her waist properly. She could just remove the obi first, of course, but she didn't see how the kimono would fold into those patterns so lovingly depicted in the woodcuts if it were just left open. Kenshin's earlier suggestion about her sleeping yukata was really a very practical one, she decided as she got to her feet, at least until she got some kimonos that were a little less confining. She pulled it and her bathing robe out, and began the struggle that would transform her from an obedient traditional bride back into the assistant master of the Kamiya Kasshin dojo.

Half an hour later she was hovering outside the bathhouse battling her latest attack of nerves. There had been a bowl of cooling miso soup and some sweet sake left for her in the kitchen, both of which she gulped down in relief. The soup had settled her rolling stomach, while the sake gave her a pleasant sense of warmth at the very center of her being. But there had not been any sign of Kenshin himself, which had to mean he was still in the bathhouse.

There was no reason for that simple fact to make her so nervous. She had been with him in the bathhouse before. Often she sat on one of the small stools within, watching as he stoked the furnace and poured water into the round wooden tub. Not that long ago he had unexpectedly flicked her with water after testing the heat of the bath for her and said teasingly, "I could always stay and scrub your back." There had been a warm light in his eyes when he spoke, and for some reason the suggestion made her toes curl. Rather than call his bluff by accepting the invitation, however, she threw her bathing brush at him, bopping him square in the middle of his face with uncanny accuracy as she accused him of being a pervert. He had retreated in confusion, muttering "oro?" as he tested the cartilage of his nose gingerly in case the blow did more than merely bend it out of shape.

Now she rather wished she had taken him up on his offer, joking though it may have been. It might make it easier to share the bathhouse with him now. Somehow Kaoru thought it would take more than projectiles to drive him from the building this evening if he decided that he wanted to stay. Kaoru rubbed her forehead, trying to forestall the onset of a tension headache. Married life was really very confusing.

 _Cleansing breath,_ she told herself. She drew air in through her nose, puffed it out her mouth, and gathered up her tattered courage as she slid open the door.

Kneeling behind the wooden tub in the center of the building, Kenshin looked up and smiled in welcome. "Just in time. This is the last bucket of water, it is."

She noticed a couple of very interesting things about Kenshin right away. His bright red hair was loose about his shoulders, wisping in the steam into wilder waves than usual. And his kimono was open in the front, enough for her to be able to watch the play of muscles across his shoulders and chest as he poured the final bucket of heated water into the wooden tub. It was easy to dismiss his slender form as slight when he was doing the household chores around the dojo, but she was suddenly very aware of the corded muscle that a lifetime of training had packed onto his wiry frame.

When he stood up she became aware of another pertinent fact; Kenshin's kimono was short, barely reaching his knees, and was so loosely belted that it might as well been untied. Then he did something that, for some reason, forced all the air from her lungs. He swept his auburn locks up in one hand and, with a quick twist, secured it at the top of his head in a modification of a samurai's topknot. Kaoru found she was staring not at the glimpses of skin that could be seen as the kimono shifted on Kenshin's body but at his face, at the sharp angles and planes that were usually softened by the loose fall of hair gathered at the back of his neck. She had become used to having Kenshin in her daily life over the last two years, so much so that it was easy to forget that her new husband was really a very striking looking man.

Kenshin reacted to her stare with uncertainty, one hand nervously reaching toward the neck of his kimono and clutching it closed. "What?" Kaoru made an indistinct gesture toward the top of her own head. Kenshin blinked his large amethyst eyes, then smiled and relaxed. "I always put my hair up when I bathe, unless I'm going to wash it. Are you going to wash yours?"

She shook her head, surprised that Kenshin was planning on bathing as well. She would have to hurry up so that the water wouldn't be too cold when it was his turn. She stood very still as he approached her, but all he did was carefully untie the scarf that held her own hair in its usual ponytail, then gather the strands to the top of her head and secure them there so that her hair was done up much as his. "Very nice," he said, smiling into her wide eyes. "Come, let's begin before the water gets cold."

"Here?" squeaked Kaoru, her eyes bugging out. **"Now?!**

Kenshin looked startled, then nearly as nervous as she felt. He threw out his hands, waving them frantically back and forth. "No, no, not here! I just thought we'd bathe first, that's all!"

 **"Together?"**

"This is one of the things we get to do now that we're married. That wasn't in the woodcuts?"

"No-o-o," Kaoru said slowly, eyeing him with suspicion. Were they allowed to do things that weren't in the woodcuts?

He held one hand out to her. "Well, then they must have been very poor woodcuts."

Kaoru was beginning to think that was quite possible. Her surreptitious examination of Kenshin through the gaps in his kimono, while fleeting, had not revealed the presence of any appendage that looked anything like what had been in the woodcuts. Megumi said that the _thing_ appeared during excitement; perhaps 'excitement' simply hadn't happened yet? "Some of them were by Katsu. He's quite a good artist."

"By Katsu, really? And they didn't blow up when you looked at them?"

Unexpectedly she giggled, thinking that the only thing that had come close to blowing up in Megumi's office was herself.

"That's better," said Kenshin softly, smiling at her. He wrapped his fingers around hers and pulled her close. "Let me take care of you tonight, Kaoru. That's all I want to do."

* * *

Kenshin never thought he was good with fancy words, sarcastic gibes by Saito to the contrary noted, and especially not where women were concerned. After almost fifteen years of abstinence he was nearly as much a virgin as Kaoru. Still, he **was** the man, he was the marginally more experienced of the two, and it was his duty to do whatever he could to ease her into her new role as wife. As much as he wanted to hold her, it was far more important to soothe her fears. He hoped that by acting casual around her that she would soon realize that, whatever she may have seen in those woodcuts, there was nothing to be afraid of. It might mean dunking buckets of cold water over his head for the next few nights, Kenshin ruefully acknowledged to himself, but a fortunate side-effect of his years of training was self-discipline. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

She was rather obviously checking him out, looking for 'the thing'. Kenshin had an absurd impulse to say, "Oh, it has its own room. It's not like I can carry something like that around with me." He blushed as red as his hair at the thought and ducked his head, closing his eyes as he took her by the shoulders and turned her away from him. He pushed the bathing robe from her shoulders, keeping the brush of his hands to the minimum of contact before shrugging out of his own clothing. When he picked her up she gasped in shock. "It's all right," he murmured to her. He stepped into the tub and carefully lowered them both into the warm water, tucking her back against his chest as he settled her between his knees.

She was about as pliant and responsive as a wooden temple statue. Repressing a sigh, Kenshin reached over the side of the tub and retrieved a bar of soap and the rough-textured washing cloth. "Hold this for me," he said, giving her the soap. She cupped it in her hands, giving it a puzzled look before shooting an uncertain glance over her shoulder at him. He contented himself with rubbing the cloth over her back and her shoulders, carefully avoiding any area that she might associate with whatever those woodcuts had shown her. Incrementally she appeared to relax under his hands. When he reached down to gently run the cloth over one of her submerged feet, however, she began trembling uncontrollably. He risked a glance at her tense profile and bit his lower lip; that was fear on her face, not awakened passion. He slowly drew his hand back and stroked the cloth over her upper arms instead. "Are your feet ticklish, then?" he asked, forcing a light tone. "That's a weak spot that I'll have to remember."

"Well, one of those woodcuts was something like this, with my back to your front," she said uncertainly. "Only I'm suppose to put my knees over your elbows while you ... uh..."

Trying to work out the logistics of her mumbled description nearly brought on another attack of swirly-eyes. Kenshin staved it off by hitting the back of his head against the tub's edge. "We're not doing anything like that," he promised her, barely keeping the panic out of his voice. "Ever." He hadn't even **seen** the cursed things and he was as intimidated as she was.

"It did look uncomfortable," Kaoru confided. He reached over her shoulder; she flinched briefly but all he did was dab the cloth against the soap that she held before returning to her upper arms. After working up a lather, he cupped water in one palm and spilled it down the side of her neck, rinsing the suds away. He tried very hard not to follow the traces that flowed over her chest with his eyes, running the cloth across her back in a way that had more to do with getting her to relax than any genuine attempt at cleanliness. It seemed to be working a little bit; gradually her muscles loosened to the point where she was unconsciously resting one of her shoulders against his chest. "I suppose we could work out a schedule like I have with the students," said Kaoru after a while in a trying-to-be-reasonable tone.

His hands with the bathing cloth stilled. "'Schedule'?" Kenshin asked weakly.

"Well, Megumi said that it was normal to do 'it' twice a week, but it takes a lot of time to make up my face so it would be nice to know ahead of time. Although I can't possibly dress my hair properly by myself," she added, more to herself. "I suppose Tsubame can help me with that..."

Kenshin momentarily indulged a number of Battousai-like thoughts regarding Megumi's unwarranted intrusion into the start of their married life together. Then he tossed the cloth over the side of the tub, reached around Kaoru to take the soap out of her hands, and encircled her with his arms, tugging her back against him in a firm embrace. He rested his cheek against hers. "Kaoru. No paint. No hairstyling. I do **not** want you to be anything other than what you are."

She was wide-eyed, looking like a doe about to bolt. The backs of his fingers were pressed just under her collarbone; he could feel her heart fluttering madly under his touch. "Kenshin, I know I can't cook and I yell too much and I'm not very feminine, but I do want to try to be a good wife to you."

"You already are exactly what I need in my wife. You're **you**. That's all I've ever wanted; more than I ever thought I deserved." He released her wrists, then carefully dropped his hands below the water line. His fingers ghosted across the planes of her strong stomach, then drifted upwards to lightly stroke under more rounded flesh. She gasped, starting to crowd away from his touch, then realized what she was crowding against and froze, her body held in rigid lines. "Don't be frightened. This unworthy one would never do anything to harm you."

"I trust you, Kenshin. I **do**. But I don't see how that could **not** hurt!"

He brushed his lips against the shell of her ear as he spoke in a low voice. "I don't know if it will hurt the first time or not. It might. If it does, I promise I'll spend the rest of our lives together making it up to you." He took one of her clenched hands and placed it against the outside of his thigh. Her fingers thrummed nervously against his flesh. He rested his forehead against the curve of her shoulder, praying for self-control. "Just feel around a bit," he suggested.

Her nails flexed sharply into his thigh, which startled him by being far more arousing than painful. He could almost hear her panicked thinking: _the_ _ **thing**_. "Kaoru," he coaxed, "it might not be so bad as you think. Just indulge me a little, please?"

After a moment her hand began to move uncertainly. Kenshin leaned his forehead against the nape of her neck. He counted backwards from fifty. He relived his training days when Master Hiko made him sit under a cold waterfall to meditate. He pictured Okina naked. Not even the latter image helped him much as her questing fingers finally closed over the part of him that most ached for her touch.

After a minute of tense silence, "That's it?" Kaoru asked incredulously. "That's **it**?"

He muffled a laugh against the back of her shoulder. "I'm afraid so. Disappointed?"

"No," she breathed, "oh, **no** , I'm not, of course I'm not!" She startled him by twisting in his arms to face him, her knees going to either side of his hips as she twined the fingers of both hands into his red hair. "Kenshin ... Kenshin, this just might **work!** "

He looked not at any part of her body but up into her sparkling blue eyes, thinking that it was the first **natural** moment that they had experienced together in days. "Yes, that it might," he breathed. "Kaoru-dono. May this unworthy one kiss you?"

She froze in his arms, alarm blurring out the pleasure on her face. Then she scrunched up her eyes and stuck out her tongue.

* * *

"Kaoru." Kenshin's voice sounded strained.

"Thmmm?" she responded, which was about all she could say with her tongue sticking out.

"Ah — what are you doing?"

"This is how married people kiss," she said, or tried to. Mumbling around her tongue didn't work very well. So she tucked it back into her mouth, swallowed, repeated what she had said, and then stuck her tongue out again.

There was a watery 'thump', then a low humming noise. Kaoru waited, but nothing much seemed to be happening. Cautiously she opened one eye.

Kenshin was slumped against the wall of the tub, his eyes swirling madly, a constant stream of "oro oro oro?" being hissed under his breath. Piqued, Kaoru sat back on her heels and waited for him to recover. When his "oros" began to be gargled as he slipped dangerously low in the water, however, she decided she would have to take matters into her own hands. She grabbed him by his topknot to keep him from going under and tapped him on the cheek. "Kenshin." No reaction. She tried using her handhold in his hair to gently rap the back of his head against the tub's edge. "Kenshin!" Still no reaction. Giving up on the gentle approach, she drew back with her hand and whapped him, hard, on the forehead. "Kenshin, SNAP OUT OF IT!"

"ORO?!" gasped Kenshin, sitting straight up. He stared at her blankly for a moment, then his eyes cleared and a rueful grin curled his mouth. He raised one hand to his forehead to rub the newly-erupting bump there. "Wonderful. Now I have a headache," he grumbled. Reaching out, he hooked her under her arms and hauled her to her feet so matter-of-factly that she forgot to be embarrassed about standing naked under his gripping hands. "The water's getting cold," he noted. "Let's just head back to the dojo and go to sleep, Kaoru. We can work on this another day." He stepped over the tub's edge as he reached for one of the towels. Kaoru found herself watching the flex of lean muscle across his shoulders. Then he turned back to her, and all she saw for a moment was white as he closed the towel around her before lifting her out of the tub and setting her on her feet. Although his touch was brisk and impersonal she emerged from the rub-down feeling breathless and oddly — twitchy. When he took the towel away she had the strange impulse to ask him to do that again. But he wrapped her in her bathing robe, shrugged into his own kimono, then took her by the hand and led her back into the dojo.

Kaoru wasn't sure what he had in mind and hesitated when his path took them to her room. He gave her hand a gentle tug and she found herself following him across the threshold. Together they rolled down the futon, then Kenshin left briefly to take off his damp kimono. By the time he returned she had changed from her bathrobe into her yukata and was curled up on one edge of the futon, leaving as much room as possible for him. He grinned wryly, turned off the lamp, and settled into the middle. After a minute she felt a light touch, tracing an abstract pattern down her back. "I **would** like to kiss you," he said, wistfully. "Just — leave your tongue inside your mouth for now, all right?"

When he leaned over her something feathered against her face and, nervous, she flinched. He paused. There was a shadowy gesture near his head and the sensation went away. Abashed, she realized that what she had felt was just the ends of his long hair brushing against her skin. Then there was the touch of fingers cupping her cheek and a brief press of gently moving lips against the corner of her mouth. It was over before she could react. She raised a hand to touch the small moist spot. _My first kiss._ Kenshin pulled her away from the futon's edge before shifting marginally closer to her, his nose touching the back of her neck, tucking his arm under her head for her to use as a pillow. She went rigid but he didn't do anything else, and soon she heard quiet, regular breathing from him that she took to mean he had fallen asleep. It was impossible to spend the entire night with her muscles tightly tensed, but she did not truly relax. It was nearing dawn before exhaustion forced her into an uneasy doze.


	3. Chapter 3

Author: RiikiTikiTavi  
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin  
Rating: Probably PG-13 since only the art gets naked in this chapter. ;;^^  
Pairing: Kenshin + Kaoru  
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the manga (although if you've made it this far, you're pretty thoroughly spoiled by now). Sex. Humor. And yet more exaggerated anatomy, this time from a male perspective. ^^  
Archive: No archives, no MSTings.

* * *

 **The Bridal Discussion, Part Three**

* * *

There were a few individuals up and about early in the morning who heard the wind rattling along the rooftops and wondered at it. But although the gust was powerful it was also brief, so most immediately dismissed it from their minds and continued about their business. One young boy, barely awake when he felt the tremor through the thin walls at its passing, fancifully thought that Divine Justice was blowing through Tokyo's clear skies. It **was** early, however, and he had often had his imagination mocked by his other siblings, so it was with no effort at all that he rolled over and went back to sleep. He never knew how close he was to the truth.

The wind whirled to an abrupt stop on a flat rooftop overlooking a back street near a major hotel. Below stood a carriage with four solid horses harnessed to it, surrounded by a scene of organized chaos that would go unremarked later in the day when the streets were busier. Luggage of various shapes and sizes was being lashed to the roof of the carriage as commands were shouted back and forth between a groomsman and the driver. Nearby stood a small group of people, evidently the passengers, who were waiting with varying degrees of patience to be allowed to board the vehicle.

On the rooftop amethyst eyes narrowed as they viewed one person in particular, a striking woman with silky dark hair that flowed smoothly to her hips and a serene expression across her flawless features, so tall she topped several of the men in the group. Then sandaled feet stepped off the roof in a seemingly-suicidal maneuver.

To the group of people concentrating on the carriage it was as if the young man materialized before them from nowhere. Even the few among them who might have been exposed to the sort of training that would allow them to regard such an event with some degree of equanimity were taken aback by the very prominent katana casually held at the man's waist. Although various forms of martial arts were common, the prohibition against the carrying of swords was strictly enforced in the modern-day Meiji capital of Japan. It was a very surprising place to come face-to-face with someone who was obviously a samurai.

Yet there was one known in Tokyo to ignore the law. Anyone who had spent time in the capital during the past two years knew of Himura Kenshin. Even those who had never seen Himura instantly recognized him in the small red-haired man with the large cross-scar on his face. Some called him the idiot savant of the Kamiya dojo; brilliant in battle, but so simple that he was satisfied doing women's work such as laundry and cooking. Others rumored him to be one of the dreaded manslayers who were instrumental in bringing down the Edo government a decade earlier, perhaps even **the** manslayer, Battousai, whose talent for assassination was crucial in throwing the patriots into confusion during the latter days of the Edo regime and whose skill for murder directly led to the downfall of the shogunate. Those who saw him wandering haphazardly through the markets on shopping days with an aimless smile on his face were inclined to dismiss the latter rumor. There was no one at the carriage stop, however, who at the moment harbored any doubts whatsoever.

Not everyone present was a native of Tokyo. Seeing that unnerving gaze leveled on the single woman in the party, one young man stepped in front of her protectively. The hand casually resting against the sheath of the sword tightened, but "No, no, it's fine, I know him!" the woman exclaimed, her tone urgent as she rushed forward and seized the samurai by an arm. "Are you hurt? Is Kaoru all right?"

"No, and yes. We have to talk." The samurai pivoted away and strode off, obviously expecting her to follow.

The woman did, although once she had ascertained that no one was injured her words became a litany of softly voiced complaints. "But I'll miss my carriage! How am I supposed to get to the station in time to catch the train for Aizu?"

"I'll make sure you get to the station," the man replied, and paid no further heed to her increasingly petulant protests as they walked through the near-empty streets. He did not pause until the two stood in front of Dr. Gensai's clinic. Grumbling, the woman opened the doors. Inside she stopped as if in sudden doubt, turning to say sharply "You are **sure** that Kaoru is fine? Where is she?"

"If I say she is fine, then she is fine," responded the man in a deceptively mild tone. "Now. Show me the woodcuts."

* * *

Megumi tried to recall every wedding night injury horror story she had ever been told as she scurried closely behind Ken-san. There were quite a few: people who bled to death after their initial sexual experience (half of them bridegrooms); unfortunate trips in the dark once usually-lit lanterns were doused; unlucky accidents with sharp implements, the latter rumored more common in arranged marriages that featured much older men. Really, though, the worst she could think of in realistic terms was a pulled muscle. She eyed Kenshin's gait critically, not discerning anything in his stride that indicated an incapacitating strain. Yet this was the pathway to the clinic, and she could not imagine why they were going there if he were uninjured. Unless passion made Kenshin revert to Battousai, she suddenly thought as she crossed the clinic's threshold, in which case Kaoru could be the injured one. Alarmed, she turned and demanded to know the whereabouts of her friend.

But Ken-san countered with a demand of his own; to see the woodcuts. And since this was not a street-side stall specializing in myriad kinds of artwork, there was little doubt which woodcuts he meant.

Megumi stared at him in complete astonishment before the sly grin lifted the corners of her mouth. "Ken-san! This is such a surprise. Dr. Gensai is usually the one who counsels nervous bridegrooms, **especially** the day **after** the wedding. Perhaps we should wait for him...?"

Kenshin's eyes narrowed to violet slits. The stare he leveled at her shocked her out of her playful mood. There was no hint of amber about his gaze, but there didn't need to be for it to be threatening. It was sometimes easy to forget that amiable Kenshin was really a very dangerous man whether or not the cold murderous rage of Battousai could be glimpsed in the depths of his eyes. Pausing a moment to collect herself, Megumi gestured toward a low table set in the corner of the room. Kenshin sat at it without complaint, but the heel of his hand rested casually against the hilt of his sword. She did not waste any time in retrieving the woodcuts, kneeling across from him as she carefully unwrapped them.

She laid them out as she usually did, the older ones from the Edo era at the top, the two more recent ones by Katsu prominently at the bottom where they should catch the eye first, automatically giving her usual calming little speech about what era each were from. Then she folded her hands into her lap and waited for some clue as to what she should do next.

After one quick, all-encompassing glance, Kenshin slapped his hand over his face. At first Megumi thought he was embarrassed and prepared to launch into the appropriate speech for that situation, but then she saw the gleam of open eyes behind his fingers and realized the gesture was one of exasperation. It was very unlike the usual easy-going manner Kenshin liked to assume. She regarded him uncertainly as he spoke in clipped tones. "Megumi, there isn't a person, male or female, in all of Japan that looks like this."

"Well, of course not," agreed Megumi, her faint puzzled tone completely genuine.

Dropping his hand, he began to study the woodcuts, lifting one for a closer look, tilting another as if the angle would help him interpret the images depicted upon it. "I would dislocate a hip if I tried that. And **this** isn't even possible!"

Megumi's gaze held growing confusion. "There has to be quite a bit of exaggeration in order to show the general mechanics." The glare Kenshin shot her made her catch her breath; she involuntarily clutched one hand defensively into the material at the neck of her kimono before reminding herself that this was **Kenshin** , for the love of the Buddha, and she was probably safer with him than with anyone else in Japan. She let her hand fall back into her lap and continued, "If everything is proportional, how can anyone see enough to demonstrate ... ?"

She trailed off. Kenshin was not listening to her. Instead he was staring at one particular woodcut as if it were alive and about to attack him. Curious, Megumi dropped her gaze to see what was holding his attention.

* * *

Kenshin was aware of the existence of erotic woodcuts. He had even teased Sano once or twice by suggesting the younger man might be in the market for some. In all of his very eventful life, however, he had never actually seen any. They were expensive and rare, far beyond anything a wanderer might afford, and not something that held any interest for Himura Kenshin the man. In spite of Kaoru's somewhat garbled descriptions, he really wasn't prepared as Megumi carefully arranged the woodcuts on the table before him. One part of his mind recognized the young doctor's impersonal identification of each drawing as being from this era or that era as a way of giving the viewer something other than the images to think about. The rest of his mind was too stunned at what it was seeing to much care.

As it had been natural for Kaoru's eyes to be drawn to the men, it was natural for Kenshin to look at the women in the portraits. He was no expert in female anatomy, but he was very glad he knew enough to know that women did not possess — his mind momentarily lost its descriptive powers and without realizing it he fell back on Kaoru's euphemism — a _thing_ that ran like a train track from the midriff to the small of the back. It was no wonder that the men in the images had corresponding _things_ that looked that they belonged on horses rather than humans. It would take a man with a huge _thing_ in order to satisfy a woman with—

He clapped a hand over his face, unable to believe that he had been reduced to Kaoru's uncertain method of describing body parts when he **knew** the appropriate terms. Even without the grotesque exaggeration of both male and female genitals, the woodcuts were disturbing. Apart from the pertinent intimate parts the various couples had no other physical contact whatsoever. They were very cold works, he decided, all sprawled limbs and elaborate hairstyles, no emotion on the blank faces at all.

He was just beginning to regain some of his composure when his gaze fell upon one of the older Edo engravings. Even though her explanation had been mumbled and brief, it was easy to recognize that this was **the** picture that made Kaoru tense up when he had touched her foot. If Kaoru thought it looked uncomfortable from a female's perspective, from a male's perspective it appeared downright dangerous. Kenshin was not very experienced sexually but he had a reasonable idea of the capabilities of his own anatomy. After a few quick calculations involving angles and pressure points, he decided that fathering children after attempting such a precarious maneuver was probably a forlorn hope. Then he suddenly realized what else made this one of the pivotal woodcuts. "That explains **that** , it does," he muttered as he eyed it balefully. The couple had their faces mashed together cheek-to-cheek, their tongues poking out like stiff spears and only touching at the tips. And they both had their eyes clenched closed, which accounted for the contorted expression Kaoru had on her face when she tried to copy what she saw.

"Explains what?" asked Megumi with bright curiosity as she leaned over the table, her head tilted like a bird as she examined the woodcut. "Ken-san, what is this all about?"

Kenshin had the absurd impulse to flip the woodcut over so she couldn't see it, as if viewing it might give her entirely too much insight into what his wedding night had been like. He wondered how to word his reproach and finally decided on mild annoyance as the appropriate tone to adopt. "Megumi-dono, didn't you **explain** any of these to her? Do you have **any** idea what you put her through when you showed these to her?"

The bird-like tilt to her head remained as she contemplated him. She looked down at the woodcut, then returned her gaze to his face, her brows slightly drawn in concentration. A ripple of comprehension flowed across her face. Astonished she threw her gaze back to the woodcut, and this time Kenshin did slap a hand over it as if hiding the image would somehow disguise the truth.

Then, in spite of the fact that she was already kneeling on the floor and could not have possibly slipped on anything, Megumi toppled over.

* * *

It was not as if Megumi had never laughed before. It was just that she was a deliberately elegant woman and because of that she laughed in the acceptable manner, tittering politely behind one raised hand but never loud enough to attract censoring attention.

She had, however, never ever in her entire life laughed like **this** , howling uncontrollably, arms strapped around ribs that were beginning to hurt, unable to breathe properly, unable to even sit up.

"Megumi-dono, it very much is not funny!" she finally heard Kenshin say in a plaintive manner. She thought it very possible that he had been talking to her for several minutes, but she couldn't hear him until she became too air-starved to continue to scream with laughter. "Do you know how much you frightened Kaoru with these?"

Wheezing, Megumi held one hand across her middle as the other braced against the nearest wall, and slowly managed to lever herself back into a kneeling position. "I **thought** it was strange that she didn't have more questions! But then I decided that you two had probably already—"

" **Oro**?!"

"Well, really; you **have** been living there for over two years, and Yahiko moved out **months** ago. I thought she might be embarrassed at being caught out."

A light flush ran over the bridge of his nose. Kenshin averted his eyes. "I had no idea you thought so poorly of my honor," he bit out.

Megumi looked at him in surprise, aware he was not so much offended as hurt by her supposition. "Oh, Ken-san. No one would have blamed either of you. In any case, you are married now. Does it matter if people say 'it's about time'?" _It matters to_ _ **him**_ **,** she realized as genuine shock spread across his face, then wryly acknowledged, _Of course it does; he would never tolerate even the thought of bringing dishonor to Kaoru. Good thing he didn't know, then, or he would have remained a wanderer and we would have all been the more miserable for it..._ She allowed him time to regroup by continuing in her usual slightly-arch manner. "How was I supposed to know she was so naive as to take these as **literal**? She's nearly twenty! Most women have been married for four or five years by the time they reach her age!"

"Kaoru is not naive," Kenshin gritted out. "She has been **misinformed**. There's a difference."

Now that she knew the reason behind it his narrowed gaze was no longer intimidating Megumi. Laughter threatened again, and holding it back nearly made it erupt all the faster. But she liked Ken-san, and despite the sometimes acerbic nature of their relationship she liked that bratty little kendo twit as well, so she made a god-like effort and finally managed to bring her amusement under control. "Oh, bring the silly girl here and I'll give her the full talk whether she wants to hear it or not. I'll miss my train, but it'll be worth it. For you, too, I imagine, once I send her back to the dojo."

"Megumi-dono," Kenshin responded with a deceptive, mild pleasantness, "this lowly one is not letting you anywhere near his wife until after the birth of our first child. Perhaps not even then."

Megumi's face tightened into a faint moue. She supposed she deserved that. Still, she felt obligated to protest. "Ken-san, I did not deliberately set out to — to traumatize the brat! Besides, how are you going to get as far as a child if you let her continue to think that this;" she waved one hand over the woodcuts, and Kenshin's gaze was involuntarily brought back to them, "are what men **really** look like? I suppose we should just count ourselves fortunate that you are not similarly ignorant about women or the two of you would be cowering on opposite sides of the futon until you both died of old age!" She watched him from under her lashes fully expecting a spirited defense of Kaoru after the last statement, but once again the woodcuts had caught his attention and he was not listening to her. He was so pale that Megumi wondered if he was having a problem with his blood pressure. He put one of his long-fingered hands over the wood-cut that held his gaze, covering up the more salacious parts of it. He looked at her. He looked down at the woodcut. He looked back at her.

Just from his flabbergasted expression Megumi had a good idea which drawing it was before she glanced down to confirm her suspicion. Sure enough it was by Katsu. Although the woodcuts by the young counter-revolutionary conformed to the conventions of the genre there were also notable differences, which was why she liked to use the ones he donated for the more in-depth aspects of her talks. For one thing, unlike the Edo era prints where the women had formally dressed hair complete with kanzashi sticking out at angles so dangerous it was little wonder that the men depicted kept their bodies as far away as possible, this woman had her long, unornamented hair down. It flowed over her naked back and across the body of her partner like a silk covering. But Megumi knew that there might well be a reason beyond the casualness of the portrait that someone could become transfixed upon seeing it. "Ken-san," she drawled. "You may be the first person to have **ever** looked at the **face** in that particular one."

"Ah—" He seemed at a loss for words. Even 'oro' appeared beyond his capabilities at the moment.

"I have been assured that any resemblance that I **think** I see is the result of my over-suspicious mind. I suppose that applies to any you think **you** see as well."

Kenshin's expression shifted from faintly shocked to a more thoughtful one. He stacked the older woodcuts one on top of the other and shoved them aside. Then he took the two by Katsu and placed them in the center of the table. He gazed at them intently as if studying them.

"Getting ideas?" Megumi finally couldn't help but ask. She had a feeling that anyone looking at her right at that moment would claim to see fox ears sticking out from her head.

Kenshin shook his head. "You should get more from Katsu."

"Oh, I've tried, both for here and for my practice in Aizu. Unfortunately he's not drawing anymore, apart from the occasional political caricature. I'll have to let him know you approve of his technique," she added slyly.

Kenshin grinned slightly, and Megumi knew that she had been somewhat forgiven as the atmosphere in the clinic lightened appreciably. "There is skill in all of these, but it's not that." He pointed. "They are actually **touching** each other; she's got her arms around his shoulders and he's — " He stopped, a slight tint rising in his cheeks again.

"Nuzzling her neck?" offered Megumi dryly.

"Well, it's still a bit," he turned his head to one side, and then the other, as if the different angles might somehow bring perspective to the woodcut, " **improbable** , but it's — it's a kinder portrait than," he tapped the stacked Edo-era prints, "these others."

"I think so, too. I did try to point out Katsu's in particular when Kaoru was here but as I said, I got the impression from her that they didn't hold that much interest. What's so funny?"

He put one hand behind the back of his head, still laughing a bit. "I'm sorry. I never imagined I would be sitting here the morning after my wedding discussing dirty pictures with you!"

Momentarily Megumi bristled, ready to launch into her "these aren't dirty pictures, they're **educational** " lecture, but then she noted the faint curiosity in his eyes as he looked at the other woodcut Katsu had donated to the clinic and a suspicion, long held in the back of her mind, came to the forefront. "Ken-san, I'm going to no doubt abuse my privileges as a doctor in order to ask you a very personal question. I know you were wed in Kyoto when you were fifteen and widowed before the year was out. Have you ever been with a woman that you weren't married to?"

Kenshin blushed. It was not a flushed tinting of cheeks or a brush of heightened color across his nose but the rich color of a summer Tokyo sunset, the deep red of true embarrassment.

Not for the first time, Megumi regretted that the smelly tomboy of a dojo instructor met Kenshin first. "You really are the sweetest man in all of Japan, you know that? I don't normally advise the bridegrooms, but every now and again there's one who is more comfortable discussing such things with a woman. Shall I give you the nervous bridegroom talk?" Kenshin appeared to have been struck speechless, his eyes widening as his irises constricted, his mouth dropping open. "You might learn something useful," Megumi prodded. "Perhaps something that even that little raccoon girl might appreciate if not now, then sometime relatively soon."

"You are a very bold fox sometimes, that you are," said Kenshin faintly, eyeing her as if he were afraid of what she might do next.

Megumi actually snorted. "Since you aren't bolting for the door I will assume that is a 'yes'," she said dryly. "Wait here for a minute."

"For what?" he asked suspiciously.

She gave him one of her most arch looks. "Why, for me to go and get the woodcuts for the **groom's** discussion, of course."

It was Kenshin's turn to fall over.

* * *

In the end Megumi did miss her train, but she didn't seem to really mind. Apparently being held in Kenshin's arms as he raced across Tokyo toward the station utilizing his god-like speed was a thrilling enough experience that it outweighed her irritation at the amount of time she had to wait for the next train to Aizu. Kenshin of course did not leave her there by herself. That would have been impolite. So he sat next to her on one of the hard benches that dotted the platforms, his sword leaning against his shoulder as they exchanged quiet conversation that said very little but meant a great deal to both. When the conductor called that the 11:15 to Aizu was ready to board the two stood and gazed at each other uncertainly, not sure how to say goodbye. Then Kenshin's face gentled into his usual aimless grin and Megumi smirked her usual subtle, sly smirk. She put a hand against his scarred cheek and bent her elegant neck enough to look him in the eyes. "Be happy, Ken-san."

His grin shifted into the genuine smile that she only rarely saw, the one reserved for his closest friends. "I cannot say what fate has planned for us, Megumi-dono. Still, this unworthy one has every intention of making Kaoru happy, and that will make him happy."

"Oh, I'm sure you have many, many ideas now about how to make her 'happy'," responded Megumi wickedly. Kenshin gave her a severe look, but the smile remained in place. They formally bowed to each other in parting. Kenshin waited until she stepped from the platform and disappeared into the body of the train before he turned away, his thoughts firmly set on home and his new bride.

* * *

Kenshin's return journey toward the dojo was much more leisurely than his original excursion to intercept Megumi's carriage. He paid little attention to his surroundings as he walked through Tokyo's teeming streets. His mind was preoccupied with Megumi's 'talk'. After an hour's worth of 'the groom's discussion' Kenshin had a better understanding of how confused Kaoru must have been following her initial exposure to the bride's woodcuts. He was feeling rather overwhelmed himself. Apparently sex was a lot more complicated than what he could recall from from his first marriage. As hard as it was to imagine, the woodcuts for the groom's discussion had been even more impersonal than the ones he had first viewed. That was because they consisted of very clinical detailed close-ups of the intimate parts of male and female anatomy. "Men worry more about the mechanics of the entire process," Megumi explained to a speechless Kenshin, evidently not any more embarrassed at showing him these woodcuts than the other ones. "Women are concerned about generalities, what things feel like as opposed to how things are done. They also tend to be comforted by signs of familiarity; the kimonos, the hair, the make-up. Unfortunately," she added with wry amusement as she tapped a finger against the stack of Edo-era woodcuts, "these **are** illustrations by men, so everything is performance-oriented. If I were an artist myself, my emphasis for the bridal woodcuts would be very different. Still, Dr. Gensai is fortunate that there have been so many of these donated over the years. Most clinics don't have even one."

Near the end of the lecture she gave him a shrewd look and dryly congratulated him on his lack of a nosebleed. "I rarely have bridegrooms with such control," she said in her artful manner. Kenshin had maintained his bland expression, but in truth he found most the woodcuts to be more grotesque than arousing. Besides, none of those women, with their fleshy hips and over-soft bodies, looked anything like Kaoru without her kimono on.

A wave of desire swept through him, so fierce he had to stop where he was and close his eyes, exhaling sharply through his nose to regain control of himself. He had been trying very hard not to think of Kaoru naked. He didn't want to recall how her skin felt under his hands, he didn't want to remember what **his** skin felt like under **her** hands, and he **especially** did not want to recollect that one moment when she had dropped her guard and embraced him willingly, her fingers in his hair and her knees pressed close to his hips. She didn't appear to have much in the way of shyness when it came to her own body, although Kenshin reflected that might be because she was too busy being afraid of his. It was likely still too soon for her, however; Megumi had given him a startling number of tips on how to soothe a nervous young bride, but first the bride had to be ready to be touched...

He blinked, abruptly coming back to where he was, which was standing in the middle of the street thinking very inappropriate thoughts for a public place. _Buckets of cold water for the rest of the week,_ he reminded himself in amusement. He glanced around and saw that he was in front of the Akabeko, Kaoru's favorite restaurant where Yahiko sometimes worked. He was very close to the dojo. He picked up his pace, not quite jogging but walking very rapidly, skirting the marketplace where he usually shopped to make for the bridge that led to the woods on the opposite side of the river. Once he stepped under the trees he paused briefly to close his eyes and take a deep breath. Home was only a few yards away. Kaoru was only a few yards away.

There were running footsteps. Kenshin looked up, his eyes narrowing dangerously, then his face relaxed as he realized it was Kaoru sprinting out through the open gates of the dojo to greet him. He started to hold out his arms to her but arrested in mid-movement, suddenly struck by the expression on his bride's face.

 _That is not happiness to see me, it is not,_ he realized.

Then she was upon him, swinging her bokken.


	4. Chapter 4

Author: RiikiTikiTavi  
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin  
Rating: PGish  
Pairing: Kenshin + Kaoru  
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the manga. Decidedly weird humor.  
Archive: No archives, no MSTings.

We saw how Kenshin spent the morning after his wedding last chapter. Now it's time to see how Kaoru spent hers...

* * *

 **The Bridal Discussion, Part Four**

* * *

Kaoru had been dreading her wedding (or more specifically her wedding **night** ) for an entire week, so it was perhaps little surprise that she awoke the morning after it with a splitting headache. Grimacing she raised a hand to her temple and discovered that her hair was still pulled tight at the top of her head. Kenshin's doing, she recalled; he had put it into a samurai's topknot before they bathed, but she had not thought to take it back down during her hurried scrabble to prepare for bed. Scowling she tugged out the ribbon, wincing as it caught in tangles. Normally she brushed out and braided her hair right before sleeping in order to minimize snarls, but of course her routine had been overset the previous evening.

As the various reasons why her routine had been so disturbed filtered through the remaining sleep haze, Kaoru's headache tripled. Carefully she moved a hand to the back of her neck. When she had finally succumbed to exhaustion Kenshin's nose had been firmly planted there. Her questing fingers encountered nothing but her own skin and a few loose strands of hair. _He moved over during the night,_ she decided. Strangely piqued at the idea, she sat up. Once again her hands went to her hair, this time trying to ineffectually smooth it down. She was sure strands were sticking out every which way. Husbands and wives really shouldn't sleep together, she thought, not if it meant husbands had to see their wives first thing. Of course Kenshin also had long hair; he probably looked just as unkempt in the morning. Faint curiosity threaded through her mind as she wondered just what he **did** look like first thing. Carefully she glanced over her shoulder, hoping Kenshin was on his own side of the futon snoozing away rather than watching her vague attempts at primping.

But Kenshin wasn't there.

Kaoru blinked. Her hands fell to her lap as she stared at the expanse of empty futon. Where was he? She directed several quick, darting glances around the sparsely furnished room as if he might be lurking invisibly nearby but there was no sign of him. Getting up, she rolled the futon into its customary place, all the while puzzling over the lack of a visible husband this first morning of her marriage.

When she slid open the screen to check the hallway Kaoru was startled to notice the sharply slanting angle of sunlight and realized it was quite late, after mid-morning. Her ill-defined irritation over Kenshin's absence dissipated. It was really very sweet of him to let her sleep in after all the difficulties of the previous night, she decided. No doubt she would find him in the kitchen keeping breakfast warm, or even out in the yard working on the laundry. She pulled back into her room, uncertain as to what she should do next. Wait here for him? Go about her usual daily routine as if nothing were different? Hesitating over her clothing, Kaoru finally settled on her practice gear. Her students had the week off but she could still train. She brushed out her hair, tying it up into its usual high ponytail, and after a moment of indecision strapped on her bokken. Feeling oddly shy she went into the kitchen.

But there was no sign that breakfast had even been started. The cooking fire was cold. And Kenshin wasn't there.

Kaoru's irritation flared up again, but she damped it down. She had overslept. Knowing that the smell of his cooking might well wake her, Kenshin had skipped making breakfast. It was a very kind thing for him to do, really. No doubt he was completing his usual round of chores waiting for her to wake up so that he could make the morning meal. He was out in the courtyard sorting laundry. That was it. Once again her slight sense of shyness returned, although the irritation wasn't completely banished this time. Sliding open the door that led to the outside, Kaoru stepped onto the porch and prepared to greet her new husband.

Who wasn't there.

There was no pile of laundry. The scrubbing bucket was nowhere to be seen. Kaoru felt her jaw dropping open. This time when the irritation came she made no attempt to repress it. Surely the morning after her wedding she deserved more consideration than to wake up alone, to be deprived of breakfast, and now evidently expected to do the laundry herself? But perhaps it was as she had always heard; bridegrooms were all consideration and generosity before marriage, but afterwards— _Men!_ she thought furiously. She stomped off to the storage shed and flung open the door. Washing bucket, scrubbing utensils, neatly stacked drying poles — all the laundry supplies were there, untouched.

There was beginning to be fear under her irritation, but Kaoru was not willing to acknowledge it yet. _The bathhouse. He didn't clean it up last night, it must be a mess,_ _ **that's**_ _where he is..._

It was, indeed, a mess. The usually-clean bath water had a thin ugly film over it. After gazing in surprise at the oily layer of scum Kaoru realized that it was from the soap that Kenshin had taken into the tub with them. Normally when bathing one scrubbed down and rinsed off before ever getting into the water, and looking at the result it was easy to see why. The tub was going to have to be drained and refilled, a major chore. The towels were still crumpled next to the tub. When Kaoru picked one up, she found it to be completely sodden. Puddles were everywhere. There was a sudsy mass in one. Putting her fingers in it, she sniffed and recognized a faint perfumed scent. It was what was left of her soap. Her **new** soap, imported from Europe, that had been Megumi's wedding present to her.

And Kenshin wasn't there either, although by now Kaoru's irritation had flared into full-fledged fury so his absence was perhaps a good thing.

She flung the door of the bathhouse open so hard that it rebounded and slid nearly shut again before she could get through. Kaoru hissed in exasperation, so angry that she nearly repeated the process. But she did want out of the bathhouse so she handled the screen with more delicacy the second time, waiting until she was through before shoving it closed with all of her might. This time when it rebounded to a half-open position she left it. Hands fisting, she stalked to the center of the courtyard, took in a deep breath, and let out a shout. "KENSHIN!"

Nothing. Not even a distant questioning 'oro?' came to her straining ears.

She had the mad urge to march down to the longhouse and demand Kenshin's whereabouts from Sano. But Sano, on the run from the law, had taken off for a world tour months earlier and would be no help at all, the free-loading ingrate. In her current mood Kaoru considered his absence to be part of some devious male plot. She hoped Sano ended up in outer Mongolia. In fact, she hoped he took Kenshin with him.

And that brought Kaoru to her real fear, which was now refusing to stay repressed; that Kenshin was gone for good. She had been such a bad wife that he had fled, returning to his aimless wanderings without even saying goodbye this time—

 _Pull it together,_ she ordered herself crossly. Wherever Kenshin was, he hadn't left her. His wandering days were over. He said as much when he asked her to marry him. The proposal had been one of his usual indirect statements, a rather nervous comment that, if she were so inclined, then he would make the dojo his permanent home. Kaoru had thought it a strange remark — what else was the dojo if not his home? — and had been halfway through lunch an hour later before she realized what he had been trying to say. But she knew Kenshin considered the dojo home long before he indicated he was prepared to stay forever. He had called it 'home' when they returned from Kyoto, and for a man like Kenshin that was not a light statement. No, Kaoru was sure he wouldn't willingly leave either the dojo or herself.

She spent the next half hour scouring the dojo for signs that he might have left it unwillingly, seeking traces of an abduction or a fight. But apart from the bathhouse, which did look as if a battle featuring half-a-dozen manslayers might have occurred within its thin walls, nothing indicated Kenshin had been forced to leave. By the time Kaoru felt she had exhausted all possibilities the sun was directly overhead. It was lunchtime, but there was no Kenshin to fix lunch and Kaoru was already feeling lightheaded from the lack of breakfast. Beginning to be despondent, and again morosely thinking that she was such a terrible wife that he had left her forever, Kaoru wandered back into the kitchen. A half-hearted hope that he had gone to the market was quickly dashed for all of the baskets used to carry purchases were in their allotted places. Gnawing her lip, Kaoru picked up the tofu basket, regarding it with such intense nostalgia it was as if Kenshin had been gone weeks instead of hours. Having concluded that there nothing to indicate his fate on the dojo's grounds, however, it was time to widen the search. The market was as good a place to start as any. He did go there quite often. He might have stopped by the Akabeko for some supplies and stayed for lunch, Kaoru decided, aware as she did so that she was really beginning to stretch in her efforts to explain Kenshin's absence.

She did not usually wear her practice clothes for trips into town but Kaoru felt she had spent too much time at the dojo and did not want to waste any more changing into a kimono. If a few merchants were shocked at a woman in battle garb, tough. She had almost reached the gate when she remembered the bokken. The outfit was one thing, but casually carrying a wooden sword through Tokyo was not a good idea. Even though members of the police force were among her students one never knew when some over-enthusiastic officer might decide her bokken violated the ban against swords and try to confiscate it. Irritated anew at the time putting it away would take, Kaoru turned away from the gate. Then she paused, suddenly realizing something important.

The gate was ajar. Usually Kenshin opened it wide first thing so that her students could enter, but with no students scheduled and Kenshin himself missing an unlocked gate was a clue she couldn't afford to overlook. Her heart accelerating madly, Kaoru cautiously approached the dojo's entrance. She pressed herself to the wood, eyes narrowed as she contemplated her next move. The likelihood was that whoever had opened the gate and absconded with Kenshin was long gone, but it didn't pay to make such assumptions. Kenshin could be facing off against a powerful nemesis on the other side of the gate right now, perhaps engaged in some sort of silent samurai staring contest that had lasted for hours. Carefully she peeked around the corner.

Her startled eyes fell on the slight figure of her new husband some distance away. He was standing under the trees, not moving at the moment, just being still and quiet. Kaoru cast quick glances around, but there was no sign of an enemy. She returned her gaze to Kenshin. He looked — rather happy, really. Content. At peace, even. Which, after the hellish morning Kaoru had endured worrying herself sick over him (and on an empty stomach, no less) was positively the final straw.

The bokken was in her hands before she had formed any conscious plan. She did not bother with a battle cry. She simply charged.

"ORO!?" yipped Kenshin, throwing up his arms protectively. He fell over long before she touched him with the bokken, a defensive maneuver so honed over the years that neither of them noticed it. It meant, however, that there was nothing solid to counter her strike, which was swung with far greater force than she tended to use against Kenshin. Kaoru overbalanced, first forward, then backward, her arms flailing wildly. Finally gravity took hold and she careened over, sitting right on Kenshin's stomach.

All the air squealed out of her husband. Kaoru stared down into his pained amethyst eyes, as startled as he was. Then the anger sparked again. Securing her grip on the bokken, she raised it high overhead. "How dare you—" WHAP "—run off—" WHAP "—without telling me— " WHAP "—do you have any idea —" WHAPWHAPWHAP "—how **worried** I was—!"

"... _ooororooo_...?" came the plaintive, warbled moan from the collapsed heap of swirly-eyed flesh under her. Kaoru paused in mid-WHAP. Her eyes widened as she surveyed what she had done. She dropped one hand from the bokken's hilt to put over her face in disbelief. Great. Married less than twenty-four hours and she had already beaten her new husband to a bumpy pulp. This did not bode well for the first full day of their marriage.

Kenshin shook his head violently to counter the swirly eyes. For a moment his stare was perfectly blank, then recognition crept back into his gaze. "Kaoru?" he croaked, half question, half self-reassurance. "Ah —good morning?"

"It's afternoon," his bride snarled, ice dripping off the words.

"Good afternoon, then?" Kenshin offered cautiously.

"Where have you been?" demanded Kaoru, but the words lost their heat halfway through the sentence and came out sounding hurt and small. "I thought I had been such a bad wife that you—"

Sheer astonishment made Kenshin's eyes bug out. He hastened to reassure her. "No, no, not that, never that. This unworthy one apologizes; I never expected to be gone so long, but Megumi-dono missed her carriage to the station—"

"Megumi?" hissed Kaoru, eyes narrowing in renewed anger. " **Megumi**?! _You spent the morning with_ _ **Megumi**_ _?!"_ The bokken was hoisted high.

No doubt sheer self-preservation precipitated Kenshin's next desperate move. He sat straight up and kissed her.

Kaoru gave a small startled grunt as their noses collided, then his mouth locked onto hers, and when she would have pulled back in shock she couldn't because his hand was wrapped around the back of her neck holding her firmly in place. It wasn't a gentle peck like the previous night. Well, it was still gentle, and his lips moved like they had before, but somehow the pressure was different, there was the tug of teeth and the flick of a tongue, and when he released her to flop back to the ground she was more breathless than she should have been from something that had only taken seconds. "I was thinking that that was my second kiss, ever," she finally said, "but maybe it's my first real one...?"

"Keeping track, are you? The first one counted, Kaoru." Kenshin reached up to caress her temple briefly. "So did the second one, this morning, here, but you were still asleep, that you were."

Kaoru touched her fingertips to her mouth, a little surprised it didn't feel different. "I thought you wanted — I thought we weren't supposed to, um, **do** things with our tongues? You told me to leave it in my mouth."

Kenshin smiled, and brought his hand back to her face to brush his rough swordsman's fingers against the smoothness of her cheek. "Not all the time. It's just that this is really very off-putting, it is." Then he demonstrated 'this' by scrunching his eyes closed and poking his tongue out at her.

Kaoru couldn't help it, she began to laugh. Once she started she couldn't stop until all the tension completely released and she found herself in Kenshin's arms, her head buried against his chest and his hands gently pressing up and down her back. "I've been such a fool," she mumbled into the cloth of his gi. "I shouldn't have thought for one minute—!"

"Now, now, don't be so hard on yourself," he soothed.

Kaoru sat up and glared at him. "Kenshin, if I say I've been a fool, then I've been a fool! Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered meekly. He looked completely disreputable, his red hair sticking out every which way and faint discolorations marring his high cheekbones. But he also looked amused and content as he grinned up at her. She suddenly realized just how inappropriate their position was even given that they were married now. The path to the dojo was little traveled but it was still a public place, and here she was straddling Kenshin's waist for all the world to see. He had dropped his hands when she sat up but he had not removed them from her; they were resting oh-so-casually at her hips, the thumb of one smoothing repeatedly against the fabric there. She had seen him angry enough to kill, but for some reason the look in his eyes struck her as more dangerous than any Battousai had ever leveled on a doomed opponent. The thought was warming rather than frightening. Then his fingers curled into the edge of her practice gi and tugged her back down.

"One of the woodcuts was a little like this," remarked Kaoru after a long pause. "Me on top, I mean—" she tried to continue after another long pause.

"I don't want to hear about those things ever again," responded Kenshin. His voice was rougher and deeper than usual, and there were inexplicable breaks in the sentence that coincided with strange soft sounds from Kaoru. "What number was that?"

"Hmmm?"

"Kisses. You were keeping track."

"I lost count."

A purr of male satisfaction. "Good."

"Kenshin."

"Mmmm."

"Can we, um, **do** this out here?"

"This?" An extraordinarily long pause. "Yes. What I would like to do ... Well, perhaps that is not such a good idea, it is not."

Sighing, Kaoru tugged herself away and got to her feet. She stretched one hand down for Kenshin and helped pull him up. He wouldn't release her hand once he regained his feet, however. Instead he raised it to his scarred cheek and held it there; she could feel his breath against her skin as he spoke. "Please don't think this unworthy one could ever leave you, Kaoru-dono."

"I'm sorry, Kenshin. I didn't really think you had left. The dojo is your home now."

He shook his head slightly. "It is just a place, that it is. **You** are home to me, beloved. I belong where you are. Always."

 _There it is again._ That strange spark of warmth that she felt sometimes when they touched, only this time his words alone brought it to her, and it was more widespread and longer lasting than any spark. Kaoru smiled at him gently. "Shall I tell you where you belong now, then?"

His hand tightened around hers; his smile brushed the back of her fingers. "Please."

Kaoru leaned closed to him and whispered, "The kitchen."

"The kitchen," Kenshin repeated dreamily. Then his eyes rounded. "The **kitchen** , oro?"

"Yes, the kitchen," Kaoru said crossly, snatching her hand away and folding her arms over her chest. "I was so worried about you I didn't eat a thing! And the bathhouse! What were you thinking putting soap in the tub? Oh, don't even get me started on the soap! Fortunately Megumi gave me an entire set or I would be **really** upset about that!"

Her voice faded away as she marched back into the dojo. For a moment Kenshin stood where he was, one hand behind his head and his eyes bugged out in confusion. Then a wry grin curved his lips. Rubbing his head in rueful amusement, he followed his wife back inside.


	5. Chapter 5

Author: RiikiTikiTavi  
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin  
Rating: PG-13  
Pairing: Kenshin + Kaoru  
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the manga series. Sexual references. Serious UST. ^^  
Archive: No archives unless I put it there myself, no MSTings.

* * *

 **The Bridal Discussion, Part 5**

* * *

It always amazed Kaoru how quickly Kenshin could pull a meal together. She could slave over the cooking fires for an entire afternoon and despite her best efforts produce something so inedible that no one but Kenshin would touch it. That was the other amazing thing; Kenshin gave every appearance of enjoying her cooking even when what she came up with had Yahiko making exaggerated gagging noises and Sano deciding that mooching off of his gambling pals for a few days might be the better plan. No doubt Kenshin's ability to consume the worst of her cooking without so much as a grimace was because of his warrior background. In the middle of a battle food was one thing that a soldier couldn't be picky about.

Well, really; when it came to Kenshin there were several amazing things. Like how he could make her laugh at unexpected moments. After — well, after his **greeting** when he got back she had felt a little shy, ducking her head to avoid his eyes whenever he looked at her during the meal. It took only a few minutes before he announced that he had forgotten something, that he had. He disappeared back into the kitchen. When he returned it was to present her with a rice-ball shaped like a rabbit with little raisins for eyes. Astonished, Kaoru studied the too-innocent expression on his face and folded her arms crossly. "I am not being childish," said she. Then she put one finger against the lower lid of her eye to pull it down in an age-old child's taunt. They both burst out laughing. Shyness forgotten, Kaoru ate the little rice-ball rabbit with gusto. She helped him clean up after the meal, and if there had been perhaps more 'accidental' brushing of fingers than usual as dishes were washed and put away both of them pretended not to notice.

Since then Kenshin had been trotting back and forth from the bathhouse for the better part of the afternoon, buckets of water from the well dangling from the pole draped across his shoulders. Kaoru occasionally paused in her practicing to peek out and watch him. He seemed content enough, as he usually did when doing routine chores, a faint smile on his face and his eyes crinkled into a happy expression. She had never been sure, but she thought the peace he found in the simple repetitiveness of everyday life was in part a response to the chaos that had surrounded him during his youth. Orphaned, sold as a slave, trained by that cold fish Hiko as a perfect warrior, then utilizing that training to become the most dreaded assassin of the revolution, all before he had seen his fifteenth birthday — small surprise, really, that the mundane held such charm for him.

She did wonder a bit at his hair. It appeared a lot darker than usual, more brown than red, and when the sun hit it there was a shimmer almost as if it were wet. The gi was definitely damp across the shoulders. _He's hurrying too much and spilling half the water_ , she thought, but after being fed and ... Kaoru touched one hand to her mouth and blushed. Well, after being **fed** she was feeling far more indulgent about Kenshin's little idiosyncrasies than she had after waking up alone that morning.

It did seem to be taking him longer than usual to drain and re-fill the tub, though. Kaoru turned away from the open door, meaning to run through another set of katas. She wasn't quite sure what to do with no students to teach. Naturally everyone wanted to respect the privacy of the newlyweds (she found herself blushing again), but she would have liked to have had other people around to — her gaze started to drift back to the open door before she ruthlessly tore it away — occupy her mind a bit.

Not that her mind wasn't occupied. It had been occupied and more since Megumi had shown her the woodcuts. Now after Kenshin's _(more blushing)_ **greeting** when he returned, it was on overload. She felt like hanging out a sign — premises full, no new thoughts allowed. Everything was focused on her former boarder and new husband.

Before the woodcuts, Kaoru thought she had a fair idea of what married life entailed. Kissing involved pressing lips together; getting babies involved pressing bodies together. If she was a bit vague on the mechanics of the latter, well, who could blame her? She had no mother and no close women friends, and her father had never seen her as anything other than a little girl. She had no fear of the process, however; she had always liked hugging Kenshin and she thought **it** must be very like that, only with fewer clothes involved. Then she saw the woodcuts, and was overwhelmed both by her own ignorance and a simple conviction that There Was No Way That Could Work. She loved Kenshin, however, and she wanted to give him every reason to remain with her. So despite her dread she went ahead with the wedding, and braced herself to go through with whatever else was required of her as a bride, no matter how horrible it might be.

After that bath, however, Kaoru found her new assumptions as inadequate as her old ones and was now in the process of re-examining her opinion in the light of yet more information. Everything in the bathhouse had been too strange while it was happening for her to consider it at the time, but now she couldn't shut her mind down as it insisted on running through the evening again and again. First him picking her up with such ease, the shock of skin on skin, then just the general oddness of what he was doing, so different from the usual bathing process. Looking back, Kaoru rather thought the break in routine had been deliberately done to give her something other than her fear to think about. During the morning she had been too upset at her husband's absence to think about any aspect of it other than the mess Kenshin left behind in the bathhouse, but she was recalling other parts now. The roughness of the cloth between her shoulder blades, the tickle of his leg hairs against her thigh, the slight catch of the calluses on his hands when he finally touched her own smooth skin. And the velvet of **his** skin in her hand and the warm puff of his breath against her bare shoulder when he laughed ...

Kaoru completely forgot where she was in the kata as all available space in her mind flooded with remembered sensations, of the bath and of — she dropped one hand from the hilt of her bokken to again touch her mouth — other things.

Kenshin was different when he was kissing her. Oh, he was still Kenshin, of course, but he spoke in shorter sentences and phrases rather like he did when he dropped the wanderer act and resumed being a pure warrior. And, oh, what he did with his mouth when he wasn't speaking... he tugged and he licked and she wasn't even sure what to call what he did to her lower lip on that last kiss but if anyone had asked her what her name was at that moment she would have not had any clue what they were talking about.

And if kissing wasn't quite what she thought it was in her girlish imaginings, it also wasn't what she had seen in those woodcuts. She had begun to entertain doubts about the accuracy of Megumi's educational aids the night before; now Kaoru was increasingly sure that, perhaps, whatever fears she might have to face in the coming night, Kenshin's body was not one of them.

It was just Kenshin, after all, and she had never been afraid of Kenshin. Her eyes traveled back to the open door to see him trotting by with another set of full buckets and that silly grin on his face. Oh, yes. Just Kenshin in a slightly damp gi that molded to his shoulders and that was for some reason making her mouth go dry when she ran her eyes over him. Once again Kaoru pulled her gaze away from the open door and tried to shake her wayward thoughts away by concentrating on her katas.

* * *

The smile faded as soon as the bathhouse door slid closed behind Kenshin. Grim-faced he stalked to the wooden tub. He balanced the pole with the two buckets across its top. It was not a well-thought-out maneuver, for when he removed one bucket the other, lacking its counter-balance, plummeted towards the floor. Kenshin started to leap for it, but the pole was suddenly transformed into a vicious weapon as the weight of the bucket propelled it upwards at a dangerous angle. Kenshin "whoof'd" as it struck him under the chin but managed to compensate, diving to the hard floor just in time to get his hand under the bucket and prevent it from shattering. Not that spilling the water would have made much difference to the floor for it was splattered with far more puddles than it had been even that morning, but Kenshin had plans for the contents of both those buckets and he did not want to waste a drop. After a painful pause where he ruefully acknowledged that he was, perhaps, just a touch too old to be getting into these physically awkward positions, Kenshin delicately levered to his feet. He put one of the buckets down by the wooden tub. The other he held between his hands, looking briefly into it as if the secrets of the universe might be revealed within. Then he leaned over at a precarious angle and dumped it over his head. Another puddle, very similar in volume to the others that dotted the floor of the bathhouse, quickly formed.

He seemed to be dumping every other bucket over his head and the floor was suffering for it. After the fiasco with the soap Kenshin was not using the tub, for he felt that strands of red hair floating in the water would just rekindle his wife's ire. While the floor was made to handle a certain amount of water, repeated bucketful after bucketful was beyond its capacity. He was going to have to sweep most of the water out before much longer.

Most importantly, however, it wasn't helping.

Kenshin was seriously considering running to the market to try and find some ice, although this late in the day such a valuable commodity would be very hard to come by. It was a pity that his rare sword style was based on speed and not the elements. Having the ability to freeze the puddles would have solved two problems as he dumped the solidified water into the tub and then dunked his head therein. The water on the ground, however, was unretrievable. Hopefully the spring that fed the well was nowhere near being dry. At this rate, it would be next week before the tub was ready to be used again.

His treacherous mind ran through several scenarios of just **how** the tub could be used, once Kaoru was just a little less leery —

The second bucket was upended in a futile attempt to shut his mind down, but after repeated applications of this form of shock treatment his thoughts were no longer even hitching at the sensation of water.

Kenshin rested the heels of his hands against the wooden rim of the tub, deliberately pressing just hard enough for there to be a bite of pain. He watched the spreading circles form as droplets from his drenched hair dripped into the half-filled basin. He shouldn't have kissed her. No, he should have, just not more than once. No, again; he wouldn't have traded those stolen moments on the very public pathway in front of the dojo for anything. Kaoru had held his heart in her strong hands for years, but to feel those hands on him, unconsciously stroking the bare skin under his collarbone before they curled demandingly into the cloth of his gi as if she wanted to rip it from him...

Oh, when she forgot to be afraid she was magnificent.

Her instincts had always been good. Kaoru was an amazingly tactile person where he was concerned. In the early days when they had barely known each other he had been startled at how little it took for her to throw her arms around him in an effusive hug. She had loved him then and it showed always in her luminous eyes, although he thought it more a crush on her part than the binding passion he came to feel for her. Time had tested them over and over again, and despite her relative youth Kenshin was finally forced to admit what she felt was as true as his own feelings. He couldn't believe that he had waited two years before marrying her. His body couldn't believe it was waiting another minute before claiming her. When something was important to him, he became a very focused individual. And right now his body was very focused on Kaoru, no matter where he was trying to send his mind. The latter had checked out for good around the time Kaoru flicked her little pink tongue out to receive one of the raisins that he had fancifully decorated the last riceball with. She had been lucky to finish that absurd rabbit unravished.

Ice. He was definitely going to need ice.

 _She's not ready_ , he repeated to himself like a mantra. _Not ready._ Kenshin picked up the pole and glared balefully at the buckets before rehooking them on the ends. Then he carefully placed the placid smile that was his main defense against the world across his face and pushed open the sliding door, ready to make another trip to the well.

* * *

Kaoru held the defensive pose for so long that an impartial observer might be excused for thinking that she was engaged in some form of meditative exercise rather than a physical one. But in a way the exercise was **very** physical. Or at least, what was happening to her body was. It was not just that pleasant tingle she now got when she pressed her lips together, remembering what it had been like when **his** lips had been doing the pressing. After that one glimpse of Kenshin's shoulders so lovingly draped by the wet cloth her entire body turned ... twitchy, like it had been the night before after he had rubbed her dry with the towel.

Not that her mind was totally inactive. It was functioning, just on an instinctual level that Kaoru didn't fully understand. It was reminding her, much as it had when she stood on the riverbank a week ago and watched the rushing water, that she had always liked it when Kenshin touched her. More importantly, it was prodding her to remember that **she** had always liked touching **him** , even back in the days when he had been the one shying away from her hands, afraid to let her get too close, convinced that the blood he had spilled in the war made him unworthy.

Well, enough of that. Woodcuts be damned. Kenshin didn't want her hair dressed and he didn't care about the kimono or the make-up. Which meant she was ready just as she was.

Slinging her bokken over one shoulder, her face determined, she strode to the open door and called out, "Kenshin!"

"Coming," came a faint response from the direction of the well. Kenshin trotted into view, buckets filled to the brim and sloshing with every step, and stopped in from of the small wooden platform that surrounded the building. He lifted the pole over his head to lower the buckets to the ground. Kaoru could see the muscles across his shoulders tense and relax with the movement, then her eyes were drawn to the open neck of his gi, which showed rather more of his chest than was strictly polite. Her mouth stopped working and all she seemed to be able to was stare at him blankly. "Kaoru-dono?" he prompted.

Seen up close Kaoru realized that Kenshin was more than damp, he was sopping wet. There was beginning to be a bite in the air as evening approached and she had the stray idea that he was going to catch his death of cold if he didn't change his gi before darkness fell. _He may be the greatest swordsman in all of Japan, but he's very silly sometimes. He really needs someone to look after him._ The thought did a great deal to calm the fingers of nervous tension that had scratched through her stomach at the sight of him. "All done, Kenshin? After that workout I'm ready for a hot soak!" She waggled a finger under his nose, enjoying the slow rounding of his eyes. "No more soap in the tub, though! Not unless you want to spend half the day tomorrow refilling the tub as well!" She turned away, trying to adopt a confident swagger as she started toward the bathhouse. Unbeknownst to her it manifested as a side-to-side roll of her hips that made Kenshin close his eyes and clench his fists. "Aren't you coming?"

There was a very long pause. Kenshin finally mumbled in a weak voice, "It's not ready."

Kaoru looked over her shoulder in surprise, to see the fading light of a very intent stare smooth into a small, polite smile. She blinked, decided she was imagining things, and asked, "Not ready? Kenshin, I know it's a big job but how long can it possibly take to fill up one tub?"

He swallowed, hard. Fascinated, her eyes traced the movement down his throat before she decided that was a very strange thing to be doing and pulled her gaze back to his face.

"There were many puddles, there were, and I still need to mop them up."

"But I thought we were supposed to do this together now."

She wasn't sure, but she thought the noise that came from Kenshin might be best termed a squeak. Kaoru viewed him with curiousity. Even when he was at his most deliberately obtuse, Kenshin was not inclined to squeak.

"There isn't enough water for both of us," he said. "Tomorrow — tomorrow, we shall see, that we will."

Kaoru screwed her courage up to the max. "You did say something about washing my back once." His eyes widened as far as they could without bugging out. She couldn't quite maintain her poise, however, and turned away with a slightly curt, "Just not in the tub this time, all right? It's not the proper place for soap."

There was a dull, rhythmic thumping sound behind her. Puzzled, Kaoru glanced over her shoulder to see Kenshin repeatedly hitting his head against the door frame with what looked like a considerable amount of force. She paused, almost returning to him to ask what the matter was, but some faint remnant of her caution remained and it informed her that she might want to leave him alone for a few minutes. She slid open the door to the bathhouse and stepped inside.

There was a pause as if the very air held its breath for the inevitable. It came swiftly. "KENSHIN!" The door slammed open, rebounded and nearly pinned Kaoru, but she was fast enough to make it through before being caught. "What were you doing in there, swimming?! It's a bigger mess than ever!"

"Oro," mumbled Kenshin as he gave his head one last pound. Then he turned to her, grin firmly in place. "I did say it wasn't ready yet, that I did."

Kaoru threw up one hand. "Oh, just give me the scrub brushes and I'll sweep the water out," she said crossly. " **You** stoke the fire. You **can** stoke the fire without burning the place down?"

"Yes, ma'am." He eyed the bokken she still held over her shoulder cautiously, but Kaoru just pivoted on her toes and stomped back toward the bathhouse. Stomping did even more interesting things to the sway of her hips. Kenshin regarded the buckets at his feet ruefully. Then he picked one up, unceremoniously dumped it over his head, and almost casually shook the water out of his eyes before he went to the storage shed to get the scrub brushes.


	6. Chapter 6

Author: RiikiTikiTavi  
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin  
Rating: Pretty darned hard "R"  
Pairing: Kenshin + Kaoru  
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the manga series. Sexual references. And maybe even something a bit stronger than 'references' this time. ;;^^  
Archive: No archives unless I put it there myself, no MSTings.

* * *

 **The Bridal Discussion, Part 6**

* * *

He wasn't coming.

He wasn't coming, and if she stayed in here much longer waiting hopefully for him she was going to turn into a prune. At least it wouldn't be a cold prune, Kaoru thought absently as she raised one hand out of the steaming water to study the soft puckers on her fingertips. The tub's water depth was about two-thirds of normal, which meant that when Kenshin heaped the regular amount of wood into the furnace it heated up faster and became much hotter than usual. She turned her hand over, frowning at the raw rosy color. Not just a prune, but a red prune. Very attractive. No wonder her new husband was avoiding her.

Sighing, Kaoru tilted her head back to rest it against the edge of the tub. Nervous fear was what she had felt the previous night when Kenshin had carried her into this very tub, but now as she soaked her recollections were not of her fear but of Kenshin himself. He was much more comfortable to lean against than the smooth wood. The thought made her body run through that **twitchy** series of sensations again as she stared unseeingly at the ceiling.

At the moment she could not distract herself by bemoaning the condition of the bathhouse. It was spotless. Kenshin had brought not just the scrub brushes but the big straw broom, and together they had quickly swept out the water. There was a nasty puddle outside the doorway that she hoped wouldn't turn into a sink-hole, but at least working with him had put her in a better mood. Unfortunately being in close proximity to her appeared to have the opposite effect on her husband. Kenshin had not been responsive to her teasing and to her hints for company. Well... Kaoru considered Kenshin's actions. Perhaps 'not responsive' was the wrong phrase. 'Acting like a live duck on a hot plate' would better describe his behavior. Kenshin had been jumpy and skittish the entire time he was in the bathhouse, starting dramatically whenever she spoke, and all but sprinting through the door after dumping off two buckets of water (cold water; usually he warmed it first) for her to rinse off with by the tub. One would think **he** was the bride.

Kaoru held her breath, meaning to bob her head under the water. She had already washed and rinsed her hair before getting into the tub, but sometimes when she needed to think she found this the most effective way of shutting out the rest of the world for a few seconds. She closed her eyes and started to scrunch down. Mysteriously, however, she was still able to breathe through her nose. Opening her eyes, she sighed again. The engulfing warmth stopped just below her lips; the water was too shallow for this particular maneuver. _It would be easier if Kenshin were here to displace some water. Maybe I could even keep my eyes open while I was under—_

And she called **him** a pervert for just wanting to wash her back! She couldn't believe what her mind had been coming up with the last few hours. Giving up on soaking her troubles away, Kaoru stood up and reached for her clothes. _Why can't anything go right today?_

Pausing, she gazed for a moment at what she held in her hands, the serviceable practice clothes she wore every day. Slowly she pulled them on, but her mind suddenly was elsewhere, rummaging through her closet and considering other options. After last night she had no secrets from Kenshin so perhaps what she wore about the dojo made little difference. Besides, they **were** married now and there was no one else about to see if she wore something less than conventional when she went into dinner. Feeling a little lightheaded at her daring, Kaoru finished dressing, slung her bokken over one shoulder and headed towards her bedroom.

* * *

She was driving him crazy.

Kenshin stood with his hands braced against the well's stone wall and seriously considered winching himself into its depths as the most efficient way to cool down. Only the knowledge that Kaoru would be out of the bathhouse expecting dinner soon kept him from the attempt.

He had never really considered celibacy to be difficult, largely because 'celibate' was not a word he used to describe himself. There had not been any conscious decision to avoid women after Tomoe's death, it had just sort of happened that way. After the first couple of years when he would sometimes jolt awake aching for Tomoe any urges he had seemed to just go away. Now, however, his body was aware and it was demanding. And it was honing in on Kaoru.

 _Kaoru..._

Kenshin closed his eyes. She had asked for his company so sweetly it had been hard to keep his distance. But he couldn't possibly stay in the bathhouse with her. He had held her naked body _(her naked, wet, warm, yielding body)_ in his arms last night and kissed her mouth _(her soft, wet, warm, yielding mouth)_ this afternoon, and now his restraint was all but non-existent. Weirdly enough, the only thing that seemed to dampen his ardor was remembering the Edo woodcuts. The more detail he could bring to mind, the more control he could exert over his clambering libido. Political corruption and repression of the people be damned; the old shogunate deserved to be overthrown for the production of those wretched things alone.

Katsu's woodcuts were carefully locked away in a different compartment of his mind. Recalling them had rather the opposite effect than what he needed at the moment. The mental images might be worth remembering once they had been married a few years...

Giving his head a hard shake, Kenshin forced himself to recall his surroundings. His increasingly darkening surroundings, he noted as he glanced about the courtyard; the sun was just beginning to dip behind the trees and shadows were lengthening dramatically. He glanced over his shoulder at the bathhouse, wondering how much longer Kaoru was going to take. Had she fallen asleep in the tub? That could be dangerous. He should check on her...

 _Stop looking for excuses,_ he mentally snapped at himself. _Dinner. You need to be starting dinner, not lurking around the courtyard hoping for a glimpse of Kaoru as she comes out of the bathhouse, all damp and rosy from the steam — AARGH!_ Kenshin contemplated the depths of the well for another long minute before pushing away from it. He had other duties to attend to, ones that would hopefully distract him more efficiently than his duties in the bathhouse had.

Dinner was going to bear a marked resemblance to lunch. With the various travails of the day Kenshin had not made it to the market (although if he thought there was half a chance of ice being available the journey would have been completed in record time), so the main part of the meal would have to consist of salted pork and some unspoiled leftovers from the wedding reception the previous night. Kenshin doled out the rice and brewed tea before he set about attacking vegetables with a fluid, brutal efficiency that might have given even Saito pause. In its entire history as a staple of Japanese cuisine miso soup had never been made with such finely chopped ingredients. Even the spinach leaves were shredded to the point of near-liquid before being added to the simmering miso mixture.

He tasted the soup and made a face. _Not paying attention, Himura. This doesn't have any flavor._ He rooted around in the spices until he came up with a small bottle of Chinese bean paste, which he sometimes used to give his soups just a bit of a kick. It was an ingredient he kept carefully concealed from Kaoru for fear of the harm she might do to their friends should she ever decide to try it. He picked up his cooking chopsticks and began to delicately scoop out the tiniest portion to mix into the soup.

Kaoru chose that exact moment to wander into the kitchen. Kenshin had heard her enter the dojo some minutes earlier, which was one of the reasons he was finding it difficult to concentrate on his cooking. He turned to greet her with his usual pleasant smile, and felt his eyes widen. Kaoru's damp hair was pushed behind her ears, the heavy slick mass falling almost to her waist, and she was clad only in her bathrobe. It was not the most revealing of outfits; in fact, it covered far more than any of her practice clothes which sometimes showed a tantalizing glimpse of her breast bindings; but the sheer intimacy of it nearly undid him. He stared at her, the cooking chopsticks squeaking ominously as his fingers unintentionally clenched and ground them together. She took an involuntary step back under the intensity of his gaze, then waved a hand lightly and spoke with an artfulness that would have done Megumi proud. "You're looking at this old thing, aren't you? Dinner is running so late tonight it seemed silly to get dressed when it will be time for bed soon. I hope you don't mind." He couldn't trust himself to speak and silently shook his head. "Um ... how soon is dinner? Is there something I can do to help?"

If Kenshin had been his usual observant self he might have heard the undertone of uncertainty in her voice and realized that she was hoping for reassurance, but his powers of deductive reasoning had been seriously undermined in the last few hours. What he noticed was the length of her neck as it was framed by the fall of her dark, wet hair and how the hollow where her collarbones met at its base was made to be tasted by a subtle flick of the tongue, then he was turning away whisking the soup with his chopsticks as if it were a souffle and declining her offer of help in a strained voice. "I'm almost finished here, that I am."

"I'll just set the table then —"

"I've put the rice and the tea out already, Kaoru-dono," he interrupted her. He needed to get her wet hair and her long kissable neck and the rest of her only-covered-by-a-bathrobe self as far away from him as possible, preferably in the next five seconds or he would not be held responsible for his actions. "Go sit down and I'll bring dinner in just a minute."

A flash of hurt crossed her face but Kenshin, his eyes firmly focused on the soup even if the rest of him was yearning towards her, missed it. "Fine, I'll just wait for you in there, then."

The sliding door slapped closed. Kenshin finally exhaled and stopped frothing the soup into an unrecognizable foam. He started to put up the little bottle of bean paste then his brain briefly turned back on. Hadn't there been a lot more of it? He hesitated, regarding the soup with dawning alarm, but Kaoru called impatiently for him from the other room. Fatalistically thinking that it made little difference if one more thing went wrong in his life, Kenshin picked up the serving dish, plastered his usual smile onto stiff lips, and went to cater his Kaoru's dinner.

* * *

Kneeling at the low table, Kaoru found that she couldn't even look up when Kenshin brought the soup into the room. Instead she grabbed her rice bowl and shoveled a great wad of it into her mouth so she would have an excuse for not speaking to him. She could feel his eyes on her but she pretended to be engrossed in chewing the crunchy bits, and after a pause he left the room again. As soon as he was gone she set the rice bowl back down, trying to fight back tears. What had happened to the friendly camaraderie they had shared when preparing lunch together? It must be because she was so unladylike that Kenshin was having a hard time being in the same room with her. Yet he had said the previous night that he wanted her just as she was, without any of the trappings that those women in the woodcuts had...

Wait a minute...since when was rice **crunchy**?

Kaoru gave another experimental grind of her jaw and realized she was in imminent danger of breaking a tooth. She swallowed with difficulty. The rice was undercooked to the point of being inedible. She looked at her rice bowl uncertainly, not sure what to do. Kenshin would notice if she didn't eat it, but she would hurt herself trying to choke that down! Coming to a quick decision, Kaoru hastily got to her feet and slid open the door that led to the outside. She stepped onto the wooden planking that surrounded the building and dumped the rice into the bushes. She would have to remember to get up early to further hide the evidence or Kenshin would surely notice...

"Kaoru-dono?" came his questioning voice behind her.

Kaoru spun about guiltily, trying to hide the empty bowl behind her hip. She waved her other hand around with excessive enthusiasm in order to distract him. "Oh, it's such a lovely evening, I thought I would leave the screen open! Air out the dojo a little, you know?"

Kenshin gazed out at the deepening gloom of a moonless, starless, and rather cool night, his expression quizzical. Brushing past him, Kaoru sat back down at the table and oh-so-casually placed her rice bowl onto its surface. She dipped out some soup and raised the bowl to her mouth, but did not drink. Instead she absently tilted the bowl this way and that so she could watch the different spins made by the tiny tofu cubes. She risked a glance towards Kenshin as he set down the pork dish that was the main course and seated himself cross-legged on the other side of the low table. She really didn't know what more she could do to let Kenshin know that she was far less anxious about **it** than she had been the previous night. Not that she wasn't anxious, she reflected; it was just a different type of anxious. The previous night she had been ruled by a combination of fear and determination to do her wifely duty. Now — she lowered the bowl so that she could touch her mouth again — it was more anticipation. If Kenshin could do that with just his lips she couldn't wait to find out what he could do with his entire body —

"Kaoru-dono? Is the soup too hot?"

Kaoru gave a violent start. "No!" she yelped with far more force and emphasis than was called for by the question.

"But your face is all red —"

"It's fine," Kaoru insisted, promptly raising the bowl to her lips and tossing the soup down her throat. Then her eyes bugged out. _Oh. He didn't mean_ _ **that**_ _kind of hot. Ow!_

Kenshin regarded his own bowl morosely and set it aside without tasting its contents. "I knew it. Too much bean paste. This unworthy one apologizes. My mind was not on preparing dinner, that it was not."

 _Ow! Ow! Ow!_ Kaoru blindly reached for her tea, which he helpfully placed next to her flailing hand, then he pushed his cup over when she continued to wheeze. After gulping it down as well, "The soup is fine," she insisted through teary eyes. "Maybe just a little hotter than I was expecting, yes, but if I were more of a lady and just took in little sips like I'm supposed to I wouldn't have noticed."

Kenshin gave her a very strange look at that comment, opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything. As if he was trying to find something to do he picked up his rice bowl. Kaoru winced, wondering if she should warn him, but she knew how much **she** hated it when disparaging remarks were made about **her** cooking so she remained silent. Kenshin took one bite, then a startled expression crossed his face and he looked at the rice bowl in his hand incredulously. He put it and his chopsticks down and stared blankly at the table. It appeared as if he wanted to be just about anywhere else than sitting across the table from her. _He's going to run off again,_ Kaoru thought in distress. Trying to draw out the meal she picked up one of the pork cubes and popped it into her mouth. She meant to say something nice about the dish but instead she found herself chewing. And chewing. And chewing. The overdone pork was the consistency of rubber.

After finally gnawing the morsel into pieces small enough to be choked down, Kaoru gazed at the rest of the food warily and, like Kenshin, laid down her chopsticks. There was an uncomfortable silence between the two. "I'll clean up," she offered, garnering another very strange look from her husband. Kaoru found she was just a little miffed at the implication. "I can clean, you know!" She snatched the dishes up irregardless of their contents and marched into the kitchen with them, dribbling little bits of rice and sloshing soup as she went. True, she fumed as she tossed them into the washing bucket, it was Kenshin who did most of the cleaning (and cooking and washing) but she had managed just fine on her own before he had wandered into her life. Besides, after the tub incident and now the wholly-inedible dinner, she wasn't sure she should let him do anything more today. His mind was clearly not on his chores. Or perhaps, her ill-humored thoughts continued, it was just another example of how things changed after marriage; the laundry not done, messes left in the bathhouses, and now inedible meals. She was having a hard time remembering why it was she wanted to get married in the first place.

Kaoru glared at the unsanitary pile of crockery and food as if it was somehow responsible for the disaster that was her marriage. Soon, however, her shoulders stooped and she discovered that she was fighting back tears. No, the fault had to be all hers. It was as Yahiko and Megumi and even Sano always intimated; she was an ugly, sweaty, unfeminine creature with no idea what do to with a man, one that no man would want anything to do with.

"Kaoru?" came a hesitant voice behind her. "Are you all right?"

Pride stiffened Kaoru's spine. She blinked the threatening tears out of her eyes and turned to face Kenshin. "I'm tired," she said flatly.

"I thought you might be," Kenshin gently replied. "I folded your futon down for you."

Kaoru found herself blinking very hard again, but for different reasons. Her impulsive nature resurfacing, she threw her arms around him. He seemed to flinch briefly, then his arms closed loosely at her waist. "Kenshin, you ... you're very good to me."

One of his genuine smiles lit up his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes as he gazed at her. "Of course I am. It's an easy thing to be, that it is." There was a light touch that ran briefly along the back of her neck before settling again at her waist. "Your hair is almost dry," Kenshin added in a slightly husky tone.

 _Oh, right; my hair is down and I'm wearing an old bathrobe. Very feminine. What was I thinking?_ Kaoru muffled a sigh against his shoulder and pulled away. He didn't immediately let her go, however, keeping his hands casually on her hips as he looked at her with a curiously warm light in his eyes. "Ah —" Kaoru touched Kenshin's wrists with her fingertips. "I really am very tired," she said again, wondering at the apologetic note in her voice.

His face stiffened into the polite mask that he wore too often, and his hands fell away from her. He looked past her to the pile of crockery and congealing food. "I'll get that cleaned up, I will."

"I was going to do it in the morning —" she started, but when Kenshin turned his eyes to her again her protest dried up. He was gazing at her with the same detached expression he would offer one of her students, or a merchant in the marketplace, or any reasonably-polite stranger. It hurt. Kaoru couldn't get away from him fast enough.

Once in her room Kaoru discovered that Kenshin had done more than just roll the futon open for her. Her sleeping yukata was neatly folded on its covers. A single lantern was lit, and there was a subtle smell that she could not identify until her gaze fell on a low table pushed into a corner. In a small basin placed on the table's top floated a couple of water lilies from the pond. It was a romantic gesture that nearly brought her to tears again. She rubbed her temples in frustration, not sure what to make of Kenshin's behavior. What did he expect of her? She picked up the plain yukata and sighed, her mind going back to the elegant kimonos of the women in the woodcuts. Really, no matter what nice things Kenshin said about wanting her just the way she was, it was clear that she was going to have to update her wardrobe in order to hold his attention. Kaoru took off the bathrobe and put on her sleeping garment before running one hand through her hair, wincing as a few soft snarls caught on her fingers. Mindful of the tangles she had woken up with that morning, she took out her brush and began to pull it through her hair.

There was a hesitant tap before the door to her room slid open. Kenshin stood with eyes downcast, looking very much as if he might bolt if she said or did the wrong thing. Her heart leaping at the sight of him, Kaoru paused in her brushing. He was dressed for bed in a yukata of his own. She waited a moment for him to say something, but when he didn't she lowered her gaze and resumed brushing, eventually weaving her hair into the loose braid she customarily wore at night. She couldn't tell if he was watching her, or indeed if he was even still in the room. Nervously she turned toward the futon after tying off her braid, but Kenshin's eyes weren't on her. Instead he was scrunched up on the far side of the futon, his back to her. At first she experienced a momentary sense of relief that he hadn't retreated to his own room before the pique set in. After he had been all over her the previous night, too! She hadn't been able to sleep a wink with his cold nose shoved against her nape!

The memory gave Kaoru pause, and she studied his tense shoulders thoughtfully. It was odd, but he was acting a lot like **she** had on their wedding night. A small grin that was as much determined as amused curved her mouth. Well, if he was playing her part, that meant she had to play his, didn't it?

Ignoring the nervous butterflies fluttering about her stomach as best she could, Kaoru blew out the lamp and cautiously groped her way to the futon. After sliding under the covers, she steeled her nerves and mimicked what he had done the previous night, scooting over and putting her hand carefully on the cloth at his waist as she tucked her nose against his neck. However, she had not allowed for the simple fact that, unlike her, he had his hair unbound. On her first inhale Kaoru got more hair than air. She very unromantically sneezed all over him. He had tensed at her first touch, and when she sneezed he was so startled he almost leapt off the futon. His jerk did send him rolling off the futon's edge. There was a bit of a scramble as she nearly fell off after him and he reached out a hand to steady her. His fingers brushed against her breast and they both recoiled from the contact. The room became very still. He knelt next to the futon, hands clenched into fists near his knees, his head tilted forward so that his eyes were hidden behind his bangs. His voice came as a hoarse murmur, repeating the question he had first asked her nearly twenty-four hours earlier. "Kaoru-dono — what do you want of this unworthy one tonight?"

Kaoru didn't know how to say what she wanted. She sat up so that she was kneeling opposite him, her hands opening and closing nervously against the cloth that covered her legs. "Everything," she finally whispered, the word strained.

Slowly he drew in a deep breath. "'Everything' will take a very long time, that it will."

"We have all night, don't we?"

"I was thinking of the rest of our lives, that I was." Kenshin raised his head slightly, and despite the enveloping darkness she was sure she saw an amethyst glow as he gazed towards her. "Be sure, Kaoru. Once we start, I don't think I'll be able to stop."

"Good, because I don't think I'll be able to, either."

There was a long pause during which Kaoru thought that the pounding of her heart in her ears was the loudest noise she had ever heard. Then Kenshin reached for her. His fingers twisted into the cloth of her yukata, hauling her roughtly forward. Startled, she tried to get her bearings and found herself sitting on his thigh.

On his **naked** thigh.

With her own naked legs clenched like a vice around it as Kenshin's lips pressed hers open and Kenshin's tongue delicately stroked the roof of her mouth and Kenshin's hands destroyed her braid by combing again and again through her hair. Her head fell back against his arm as if the muscles in her neck had forgotten how to function. The movement forced their lips apart, but she felt the press of mouth, tongue and teeth at the base of her throat instead and gasped at the shock it sent through her entire body. "Ah, too much," she hissed, not even knowing what she was saying or why.

"Sorry," he whispered. His hands dropped to her waist, and he began to ease her away.

Kaoru clutched at him compulsively. "I'm not complaining, don't leave me! It's just — I didn't know I could feel so much!"

"I'm not going anywhere," Kenshin promised, holding his body unnaturally still even though his hands returned to slowly stroking through her thick locks. "There's no hurry, though. All night, remember?"

"Kenshin, I don't know what's wrong with me but I feel like if I wait another second I'm going to explode."

He sucked in a hard breath at her words, and his hands stopped moving altogether, tangling in her hair. "Nothing's wrong with you. I feel the same way, that I do." His teeth closed on her ear and gave a little tug that made her shiver uncontrollably. "You don't know how hard it's been for me to keep my hands to myself all day," he said, a low growly note in his voice that made that _twitchy_ sensation return tenfold, then he was kissing her again.

Her mouth occupied, Kaoru was forced to draw in air through her nose when her lungs started to burn. Kenshin's compulsive threading of his fingers through her hair paused. One of his arms wrapped around her back, his hand pressed near her waist as he eased her down on the futon. His thigh was still between hers and he pushed it up as he settled over her, making her gasp and squirm. Somehow both of their sleeping robes were open and the stroke of flesh on flesh was overwhelming. "There's a lot more touching than I thought there was," she said, almost in awe.

There was an amused snort near her ear. "I'm doing most of it," Kenshin pointed out before going back to tracing moist trails on her neck and shoulders.

Her fingers were clenched into the cloth at his shoulders. Kaoru had to make a conscious effort to relax her hands, then she wasn't quite sure what to do with them next. He tensed and raised his head when she took her hands away, pausing as if waiting for her to reject him. She touched his face, delicately feeling along the planes that she had admired the previous night when he tied his hair up, and he relaxed with a soft sigh. "My hands are rough," she half-apologized.

He didn't say anything trite. He turned his head to nestle his cheek into her caress. "They're good hands." There was the brief nip of teeth against her palm before he dropped his head to lave her collarbone. She shivered again; she also didn't know that biting was involved, but every time he so-carefully used the edge of his teeth it invoked primitive waves of feelings that she had no words to describe. Experimentally she lifted her chin and lightly bit his shoulder.

Kenshin gasped and stilled, then suddenly all was a series of blurred sensations. His yukata was gone, hers was pulled from her shoulders briefly trapping her arms by her sides, there was a touch against her knee as her thigh somehow twined around his, then his hands were on her waist tugging her one way as his body went another and her neck arched while sounds she didn't know she could make squeezed out of her throat. Kenshin was moaning too, his mouth against her temple and one hand now on her hip, holding her closer than she ever thought two people could be. _Sword and sheath,_ she thought hazily, _it really_ _ **is**_ _like a sword and sheath._ One of his moans sounded a bit like her name, questioning. She turned her head to stare at the shadowy face near hers in the darkness, her eyes wide. "It doesn't hurt," she whispered. "It doesn't hurt at all."

He drew in an uneven breath before lowering his head until his mouth almost touched hers. "Good," he breathed across her lips. "I didn't want to —" His body was shaking as he pressed his forehead against hers. "I was so afraid of hurting you."

"But I still don't know what to do."

He made a strange breathy sound, half exhale, half chuckle. "This unworthy one can help you with that," he whispered, and proceeded to do just that.

* * *

Kaoru awoke several times in the night to heated murmurs and strong hands, so when she blinked awake for good in the light of the morning she did not feel deprived at being alone, at least not once she groggily raised her head and smelled breakfast cooking. There was a slightly pungent odor mixed in with the usual subtle one of miso soup. After sniffing it she realized that Kenshin must have gone to the market very early and obtained some fresh fish from the vendors there. She stretched luxuriously, feeling small twinges as newly awakened muscles mildly objected, and considered rolling over and going back to sleep. Her stomach protested the mere idea of doing any such thing. _That's right; I really didn't have much for dinner, did I? Well, I suppose I had Kenshin for dinner..._ She grinned at the daring thought, ducking under the covers to hide her blush even though no one was there to see it. She might have remained curled up there for a while except for the soft sound of her door sliding open. "Kaoru-dono?"

Knowing she was only wearing a silly grin and a blush, Kaoru peeked out to see Kenshin kneeling next to the futon. Amazingly he didn't look any different than he had the previous day. She supposed she didn't either, no matter how different she felt. He smiled at her, that warm light that made her toes curl lurking in his eyes. "Fresh salmon," he informed her. "It's almost done grilling so you must get up soon, that you must, or I'll eat it all."

"I suppose you do have to keep up your strength," she said without thinking, then blushed even redder and ducked back under the covers.

There was a soft touch that traveled from her waist to her knee in an instant. "So do you." The insulating covers did not disguise the husky tone in Kenshin's voice. Then there was a light slap on her hip that made her yelp in protest. "Up, I say," he told her sternly. "It would not do for the students of the Kamiya Kasshin style to find out their master is a slug-a-bed when they are not around."

Kaoru stuck her tongue out at him, which since she was still under the covers was a completely wasted gesture. She waited until she heard the door slide shut after Kenshin before moving, but once she poked her head out to inhale the full aroma of her waiting breakfast she became a whirlwind, putting the futon up in record time and grabbing the first kimono that came to hand. Kenshin was just opening up the sliding doors to the courtyard when she tripped into the room. He turned to smile at her. "It's a beautiful day, that it is."

Kaoru hovered near the table uncertainly, wanting to go to him but not sure that she should. Kenshin held a hand out to her, and she ignored breakfast to rush into his arms. He hugged her gently. "All right?" he asked.

"Yes," Kaoru said, snuggled happily against his side as she turned to look out over the courtyard. Oh, she **did** like it when Kenshin touched her, that she did. She gave a little sigh. "I suppose we're done for the rest of the week," she remarked, a little wistfully.

Kenshin blinked and turned his head to glance at her face. "Done, oro? Done with what?"

"Oh, you know," said Kaoru with a little giggle, but his blank stare indicated that he did not know. Kaoru blushed a bit, but since the previous night had done a great deal to erase most of her of shyness she spoke without any girlish hesitation. "Megumi said twice a week, and we've already done more than that." Kaoru regretfully disentangled herself from her husband's suddenly-slackened grip. "Well, I'll just send notes to the students after breakfast to let them know they don't need to wait until next week to come back to the dojo. No need to waste all this time just because we hurried things up so much!"

Kenshin gazed after her in astonishment before a dangerous gleam came into his eyes. It was fortunate he knew several ways to serve cold salmon, that it was, since it appeared there was still a misconception or two about married life that Kaoru needed to have cleared up. He followed his wife into the dojo, shutting the sliding door firmly behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

Author: RiikiTikiTavi  
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin  
Rating: Pretty darned hard "R"  
Pairing: Kenshin + Kaoru, although they aren't present here except in spirit.  
Warnings: Those confounded woodcuts make their final appearance...  
Archive: Um, I kinda like to keep track of where these hentai things are when I write 'em. So, no archives, no MSTings.

* * *

 **The Bridal Discussion, Epilog**

* * *

 _Aizu, six months later..._

It had been a busy day at the clinic. Not that any days were less than busy, Megumi reflected, but some were busier than others. Aizu had been gripped for weeks by a influenza outbreak. Although the most dangerous part of the epidemic seemed to be over, this appeared to be the day when everyone with nagging, persistent symptoms decided to pay the local physician a visit. Megumi dutifully mixed up cough suppressants and prescribed fever reducers, losing count of the number of times she had to explain that medical science didn't have a cure for influenza and that all she could do was treat the symptoms. When one of her assistants took her aside to say that a gentleman was asking for her, Megumi almost snapped that she was far too busy for any social calls. She reined in her temper, however, and said she would see him in her office in a few minutes. Most likely it was just a traveling salesman with some medical components he wished to show her, but every now and again someone interested in making a monetary contribution to the clinic wandered in. The local farmers and villagers would sometimes bring in food or do chores in payment for her services, but hard currency was a rare commodity in these parts. A potential donor could not be ignored.

Apart from running her hands over her hair to make sure it was smooth, Megumi made no concessions to vanity before she entered her office to meet with her unknown guest. For one thing, she was a strikingly beautiful woman and knew it; she had no need to primp. The other, however, was that whether the visitor was a salesman or a contributor her beauty could work against her. A female doctor who looked as cool as a geisha was hard to take seriously. So she kept her slightly-soiled smock on and did not hide her faint impatience as she bowed to the young man kneeling next to the low writing table. "I'm very busy right now," she said with a brisk professional air, "so I hope you'll forgive me if I ask for brevity from my honored guest...?"

The honored guest graced her with a small smile. "You are looking very well, Megumi-sensei, as always. If you have patients that you need to see before talking to me, I'm quite happy to wait."

Megumi blinked. _Who...?_ She looked again at the young man, this time actually taking in his appearance, the even features and the long hair that fell smoothly on either side of his face, the serious eyes that gazed steadily into hers. "Katsuhiro-san?" she asked uncertainly.

Tsukioka Katsuhiro inclined his head. "I'm pleased you can remember my name without Sano nearby to remind you," he said, a little dryly.

At a rare loss for words, Megumi closed the sliding door behind her as she tried to gather her wits together. Kneeling across the table from him, she contemplated her unexpected guest as her mind ran through what little she knew of him. Although her sly comments had led Kaoru (and Kenshin, for that matter) to believe that the two had a close friendship, in truth Megumi barely knew Katsu. He was Sano's friend rather than Kenshin's, and although he very occasionally showed up at the dojo when she lived in Tokyo, it was always in Sano's company. He had been with Sano when she had impulsively asked him if he had any woodcuts that might be of practical use to the clinic. Rooster-head had made a sarcastic gibe, but Katsu had just gazed at her with his dark eyes and said he might have a few prints left from his artist days. When he delivered the woodcuts to the clinic he had given them to Dr. Gensai, not to her. Thinking back on it, Megumi realized that she had never before seen him except when he was accompanied by Sano, and certainly never once been alone with him. "I'm pleased to see you as well, Katsuhiro-san, especially as so few of my old acquaintances from Tokyo make it this far north. Is there something I can do for you?"

Katsu placed two packages, both wrapped in white paper and tied with red ribbons, on the table between them. "According to Kenshin-san, I have neglected my sacred duty to future generations," he remarked as tapped a finger against the top one. "I'm here to rectify that." He placed his hands on his knees, gazing at her expectantly.

Megumi pulled aside the delicate paper and stared in surprise at what was revealed under it. It was a woodcut of a wedding ceremony, a bride and a groom bowing to each other as they knelt before a shrine. An inkling of what else lay within the package came to her. She begin taking out the different woodcuts and laying them on the table. They formed a sequence starting with the ceremony that carried well beyond the dousing of the lanterns at night. And it was, Megumi was gratified to see, a very reasonable sequence, one that included restrained hugs and chaste kisses as well as more tumultuous embraces as the evening continued. "Katsuhiro-san, these are wonderful," she said with perfect sincerity. "It's as if I commissioned these personally!"

"If you are pleased then I am pleased," Katsu replied formally.

Smiling in delight, Megumi raised her head to assure him that she was **very** pleased with his contribution to her clinic, meaning to archly add that brides for miles around no doubt would be as well. She found that he was gazing at her intently, so intently that the words died on her lips. Megumi, who could discuss intimate details of personal interactions between men and women with perfect strangers of either sex, was suddenly more flustered than she had ever been in her entire life. She dropped her gaze back to the woodcuts, finding it easier to study the activities depicted on them than to look into those steadfast eyes for one more second.

"I had several sets printed," Katsu finally said as Megumi refused to look anywhere else but the woodcuts strewn across the table. "I must say, I've never seen my printers so attentive to detail before! I've already given a set to Dr. Gensai's clinic. I thought you might advise me on where some of the rest would be best sent."

"Any clinic would be very happy to have these..." Megumi could not believe how faint her voice was. What in heaven's name was wrong with her?

"I have no interest in donating anything to clinics that cater to the spoiled rich brats of the Meiji regime," Katsu interrupted her. "Besides, they can afford to pay my outrageous fees! I was hoping for a list of free clinics, like yours."

Feeling she was, perhaps, just composed enough not to blush any more (which was irritating, since 'blushing' was something she associated with immature brats like that raccoon girl and not with sophisticated women such as herself), Megumi managed to meet his gaze as she remarked, "You could have obtained such a list from Dr. Gensai."

"Oh, of course," he said. "I think, however, that these are best given to you, not him."

He was holding out the smaller package to her, a expression on his face that she could only describe as 'earnest'. Megumi took refuge in her usual coy manner. "And what have we here, then? Prints for the groom?"

"A small contribution to your dowry."

On his words, Megumi knew what had to be in the package, even why he was giving her such intent and meaningful stares. As if in a dream she accepted the compact bundle from his hands. If she had been feeling flustered before, it was nothing compared to what she felt when she carefully drew aside the paper and saw what was unquestionably her own profile depicted on images that were not prints but originals. Slowly she lifted her head to stare at him in blank astonishment. Even given that this was Katsu-san who, as an artist and a revolutionary and a maker of explosives and an owner of an anti-government newspaper, was prone to unpredictable and eccentric behavior, there was no mistaking what giving a woman a gift like this **meant**.

Especially given who other than herself was depicted in these particular drawings.

"Ah," he murmured, "finally she looks at me and **sees** me. I thought I would always be nothing more than Sano's shadow in your eyes. I have waited a very long time for such an expression on your face, Megumi-sensei."

Even as stunned as she was, Megumi was not a person who could remain speechless for long. "I couldn't possibly leave my practice," she finally said. "It's too important to the people here. They have no one else."

His dark eyes were on her face, cool and slightly amused. "We live in a new era where a woman doctor runs her own clinic for the poor and the son of a peasant farmer publishes a newspaper. I, too, believe in the importance of your work here. I have no desire to step back in time, and I would not ask you to give it up. With the train, Aizu is not so far from Tokyo. "

Truth be told, at her age she was not likely to ever receive a better offer, and a man who would allow her to keep her clinic was not someone to be dismissed out of hand. Megumi dropped her gaze back to the woodcuts and remarked, rather inanely, "You have a few details wrong."

At that, finally, a hint of color rose in Katsu's cheeks and his words became a little garbled. "I had to use my imagination for everything from the neck down. Well, except for your hands. You have the most elegant hands... Fortunately artists are good at that. Imaging things, I mean."

 _Ah, he can feel nerves. Good. No woman wants to marry a statue._ Megumi looked again at the set of drawings, studying not her depiction but his, and found herself smirking slightly as she wondered just how much artistic license he had taken with his own form. There was much promise in this relationship, it seemed; still, she was a mature woman with her own means of support. She had neither need nor desire to enter into a union with someone she barely knew. Someone she knew and liked; well, that was a different matter. Scooting back from the table a bit, she put her head nearly against the floor in a formal bow. When she returned to a seated position she saw that Katsu was utterly frozen in place. Not even his eyes moved. "Is that a 'yes'?" he breathed.

"That is an acknowledgment of the very great honor you do me by asking. Katsu-san, how long are you staying in Aizu?"

Katsu hesitated, trying to read her intentions in her face, but Megumi had completely recovered her composure and he saw only what she allowed him to see. "It would be no trouble to remain for the next three or four days."

"In that case, would you care to join me for tea after the clinic closes? I find that I would not mind getting to know you what you are like without the Rooster-head interrupting us every other minute."

His eyes sparked when he smiled, lighting up his entire face, and Megumi found herself hoping that the 'knowing' process would not take very long at all. "Megumi-sensei, I would like that very much."

* * *

Notes and such: If you enjoyed this fanfic, consider checking out my "Going Up!" novella on Amazon, scheduled to be released June 15, 2017 under my pen name Safyre Starr. It's quite a bit more graphic, so make sure you're okay with that kind of thing before buying it!


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